


Always Tried To Be A Good Girl, But I Can't Really Say That That's True

by handful_ofdust



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Femslash, cisswap au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-10-04 04:43:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10268510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: Change one thing and you change everything. In this case, it's the knowledge that because women are raised to always feel guilty, it's just possible they understand a little more quickly when they've actually done something to feel guilty FOR.





	1. I'll Be Your Pet, If You Just Tell Me It's A Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Back in the day, Nicole S. and I co-wrote an Oz AU called "Gentler" in which Beecher, Keller and Schillinger were women. This is my own version of that, sort of.

It's been four years since Tobit Beecher's worn anything but slip-ons, but within ten minutes of slipping her dusty Louboutins back on, they feel pretty much exactly like they used to: like armored extensions of her legs, deforming her stride, making her sway and strut. The coat-dress she wore in court for sentencing still fits, with maybe a scootch of extra room in the waist where her post-Holly gut used to be before Vee Schillinger bullied it off her, making her do crunches 'til she wanted to puke and kicking her gently in the side every time she felt like passing out. 'Cause _None of MY gals put on weight,_ Vee used to boast, with her usual rumbly pride; _I run 'em like soldiers, make 'em eat healthy, stay active; just have to mind me, and you'll leave here in better shape than the day you came in. Always said I'd take care of you, and wasn't that nice of me? Now..._

( _...say thanks, you high-toned junkie slut._ )

And: oh, will do, ma'am. Will do.

It's so weird not to have Vee always hovering in the background anymore, telling her what to do, or not to. It's almost as weird as knowing she can leave the room anytime she wants, or that when she finally walks outside, she'll see the sky.

And Chris, Chris too, of course. It's weird to know she won't have to worry about Chris from now on, either...unless she wants to.

Giles meets her at the gate, smiling the exact same too-apologetic way she used to and treating her like she'll break if he presses too hard, like she's just been diagnosed with something fatal but they've agreed to pretend she hasn't. All of which makes her want to either punch him in the face, break down crying or maybe just have recklessly unprotected payback sex with him right there in the Oswald Maximum Correctional Institute parking lot—and since none of those are exactly great options, she does her level best to switch off, to redirect. Put herself elsewhere, the way she always did whenever she “had” to settle a debt the Sisterhood had incurred, something that couldn't be solved through mere application of violence or free legal consultation, or seal some other deal she ostensibly wasn't allowed to cut on the side; something done under the table, beyond the scope of Vee's authority to support or deny. It wasn't a lot of times, comparatively, she supposes...but then again, it might have been, by most people's standards. She's so used to reckoning things by Oz's sliding moral scale, at this point, it's become sort of difficult to tell.

Sister Peter Marie, from one of their last sessions: “What would you say is the single worst lesson you’ve learned in here, Tobit?”

Toby remembers pausing before answering, thinking it out. “That...all affection is conditional, just like all sex is transactional. Then again, I _was_ a lawyer, so I guess I probably sort of knew that before—theoretically.”

“And now?

“Oh, it very much fucking is, Sister, on both counts; no question. Makes it just a little bit hard to say 'I love you,' from now on, with anything but irony.”

She remembers the Sister throwing her one of those looks, then, soft yet sharp, cutting through the rhetoric. “Even to your children?” she asked.

A shaky breath, followed by yet more silence. “…I don’t want to talk about that, thanks,” Toby remembers saying, at last. “Don’t even want to _think_ about that, actually. Can we not, please?”

“All right, Tobit. You will have to talk about it to somebody, though. Eventually.” 

And: _Yeah,_ she might have replied, if the buzzer hadn't interrupted. _But not you, from now on._

Not anymore.

*** 

It takes three hours to drive “home,” Giles's new place, the one she's never seen before. First thing she does is hug her kids as hard as she can without hurting them, second thing is take a bath, long and hot enough to feel like she's going to pass out. Third thing she does, an hour or two after, is palm a plastic knife from their celebration Thai dinner so she can start making a shank out of it, something small enough to slip inside an unpicked seam, something that'll go through a metal detector. Just in case.

“Do we have any plastic wrap?” she asks Giles, rooting around in the kitchen drawers; he smiles again at the question, happy to see her taking an interest in normal stuff, and hands it to her. She covers over the dishes, then pulls maybe four feet more of it to stow away in the bathroom, where she can use it to sculpt a cutting edge with: wind it tight 'round the blade in increments, cook those soft and black with Giles's lighter, then scrape it against the tiles until it'll saw—or punch—through flesh.

 _Better to have it than need it,_ that's what Vee would say, she thinks; Chris as well, given who she probably learned to make one from. Wondering why the fuck she should even vaguely care what either of those two bitches would say about... _anything,_ for Christ's sake; given where she is, given—the situation. Given _I'm out, I'm out, I'm finally fucking out._

Puts the kids to bed, Holly and Gary, so much larger than she remembers them; every time she looks around she finds them staring at her, like they just can't believe themselves she's really here, at long long last. Like they don't want to shut their eyes, even to sleep, for fear they'll wake up and find her gone again.

Then it's just her and Giles, getting ready for bed themselves. She kicks the shoes off, curls her toes in the carpet, unbuttons the front of the dress and shrugs it off, looking at herself in the vanity mirror: four years since she's worn a bra with underwire in it, either, for fairly obvious reasons. Squints a bit more and realizes she can see her own nipples through the lace, which in turn sets her wondering why she ever thought it was okay to go into court like this, let alone anywhere else. Why on _earth_ it wouldn't have occurred to her when she picked them out that morning that if things went the exact wrong way, as they indeed turned out to do, then the very next place she'd be walking into wearing this ridiculous fucking excuse for a set of underwear would be Oz.

Walking in from the bathroom, Giles gives some weird sort of noise, making her look up—she meets his wide eyes, staring down, and it takes her a good long second to realize what it is he must be reacting to: the top of her up-thrust breast, silk-cradled and lace-trimmed, with its well-defined ridges of scar tissue and ink. Feels her hand fist in memory, Vee's fingers knit with hers throughout the whole procedure, folding Toby hard against her chest as though she was trying to synchronize their heartbeats together while that biker chick from Unit B ran her rig back and forth, back and forth, sponging the blood away with a cloth soaked in homebrew on almost every pass, so it wouldn't scab up more than it absolutely had to.

And: “Toby,” Giles asks, voice strained. “What...is that?”

Been a while since she's thought about it, really. But she quirks an eyebrow nevertheless, voice flattening, all dry disdain. Replying, with no particular emphasis: “Well, that... _that_ would be the letter V, Giles; it was this or a swastika, so I think I chose fairly well. Any other questions?”

*** 

Next morning Toby comes awake at six, right before count, caught up in the same bad dream she's had every night for the last four years: waking, sleeping, whatever. Same one she woke up under Vee's bunk still crying from in those first few months, curled in and hugging herself, throat raw; same one she woke up still weeping hard about into Chris's shoulder three years later, hurting all over, like she'd been trying to crack the other woman open and bury herself inside. Nothing helped then, and nothing will help now, either—she closes her eyes only to find herself back behind the wheel, singing along to the radio, too pleasantly drunk to register that flash coming around the next corner 'til it actually hits her.

Because it just doesn't matter where Toby is, or with who—not Vee, not Chris, not Giles. She could go out, get drunk, pick up some random man or woman, cross state lines, sleep in a penthouse or the back of a fucking car; she'd still wake up to that horrifying screech and thump, Kent Rockwell's blue eyes staring vacant down at her through the glass, his completely avoidable death smearing itself across her windshield without leaving even a crack, any visible trace behind. Hear his mother's voice screaming yet once more in her ear, through the visiting room partition's receiver: _I hope you die in here!_

God knows, there's been times she wished she would too, since. But she's always known she'll never be that lucky.

And here's Sister Pete's voice come murmuring again, sympathetic yet practical, much like the psychiatrist-nun herself: _What's done is done, Tobit—you can't ever take it back, so all you can do is learn to live with it. To pay the price, do your penance, then stop punishing yourself._

_Ah, yes. 'Cause that's the system's job, right?_

A beat. _Supposedly, yes,_ Sister Pete eventually replied, looking down at her desk. _A task best left to the professionals, one way or the other—because sometimes I think you actually sort of like punishing yourself a bit too much, for it to be anything like effective._

And: _Oh Sister,_ Toby'd thought, at the time. _You really do know me so well._ At least as well as the other two had come to, over time; at least as well as Giles apparently never did, poor bastard...but whose fault is _that,_ after all?

_Mine, of course. Just like everything else._

Unable to get back to sleep, she gets up and showers instead, then stands in the kitchen making slice after slice of French toast, piling the result up on that silver platter her parents gave them for their five-year anniversary, covering it to keep it warm. She makes whipped cream from scratch and sprinkles cinnamon sugar on it, combines two types of berries in a bowl, sets out the maple syrup. By the time Giles finally wanders in, yawning and combing his hair with his fingers, she's already dishing out an equally huge plate of crispy-fried bacon. “Made you coffee,” she tells him, gesturing to the carafe steaming on the counter.

“Oh, hon, you didn't have to do that.”

“I know. I wanted to.”

“I get it, and it's wonderful—but it's wonderful just to have you home, you know that, right? And from now on, you don't have to do _anything_ you don't want to, ever again.” 

Rushing to assure her, arms warm as he folds her close, voice trembling slightly; _Don't make promises you can't keep,_ she feels like saying, but doesn't. Replying, instead—lightly, as though it's a joke: “Sure, I understand. Aside from see my P.O. tomorrow, that is...”

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow; for as long as it takes, whatever it takes. Because she _can't_ go back inside now, not after having done so much to get back out—has far too many people counting on her, for that. Her kids, Giles, her parents, Sister Pete. Wouldn't want to fuck Tim McManus's overall recidivism stats up any worse than they're fucked up already, would you, Beech?

Noooo, wouldn't want to do _that._ Not me, boss.

He goes to get Gary and Holly, leaving her alone again; Toby stands there looking out the back window into the yard as the sun comes up, vaguely wondering why everything out there—and in here too, to be frank—looks so amazingly colorless, so flat, so fake. Thinking: _Maybe THIS isn't home either, any more than Oz was. Or maybe I just wouldn't know “home” if I saw it, either way._

Welcome to today's exciting episode of _Let's Play Normal_ Theatre, starring Your Mom Who Doesn't Know How to Anymore! It's no _Miss Sally's Schoolyard,_ but it'll do, in a pinch.

*** 

Slumped over in the quad next to the TV bank, her wrist in a sprain cast from that latest beat-down Simone Adebisi had laid on her for talking back, being a mother who'd killed another mother's kid, existing; that was where the meet-cute in question had happened, as Toby studied a family photo Giles had mailed her, a bare half-week in. She remembers squinting hard to overcome the loss of her glasses (broken over a discussion of where not to sit on Day Two, by nineteen-year-old gangstress Kendra “Brick-house” Wangler) and trying her level best to remember what being that smiling, bespectacled person had felt like, one arm hugging Holly to her and the other slung 'round Giles's own waist while Gary made a face, suitably horrified by his parents' icky PDA—way back when, in the good old days before she'd been a murderer, convicted or otherwise.

Former mob wife Dina Ortolani, supposedly her “sponsor” into McManus's vaunted Emerald City unit, had turned out to be the very first one to jump on the Fuck Beecher Up bandwagon. It started when she suddenly paused in the midst of giving Toby advice—keep your head down, wise up, stop fuckin' smiling—and narrowed her gorgeous black eyes slightly. Then said: “Hey, wait—Beecher. Ain't you that bitch ran over that other bitch's little boy?”

Caught off guard, Toby's immediate reaction had been to just...shrug, arms held out apologetically to either side and a ridiculous non-look of acknowledged guilt on her face, like: _why yes, Mrs Ortolani, I would indeed be that bitch._ After which Ortolani had waited until the hacks looked away, then stomach-punched her so hard she had to sit down quickly to avoid just folding over; Toby'd crouched there holding her abdomen with both hands, fascinated not just with the pain—she hadn't been punched since kindergarten, at least—but also by her own complete lack of surprise. _I've been waiting for this, obviously,_ she remembers realizing; something subtextual yet there from the start, much like how the minute Judge Lima handed her sentence down, she'd immediately started wondering who amongst the next bunch of people she'd run into was likeliest to rape her first.

“Need to stay the fuck away from me from now on, kid-killer,” Ortolani told Toby, before walking away. And Toby'd just nodded, biting her lip, as she'd watched her go, thinking: _No friends for me in here, not from now on; not for the whole next five to fifteen, probably. And just as well, I guess._

(Wasn't sure what she did or didn't deserve, really, at that point. But if coffee was for closers, friends definitely weren't for people too fucking arrogant to put other people's children's safety above their immediate, imperative “need” to get drunk and/or high.)

And: “Sweet,” a voice had commented from behind her as she studied Holly's bright face, low enough that for a moment, Toby almost couldn't figure out if it was female or not. “Your kid, I mean. She's what, five, six?”

“Seven,” Toby'd answered, not turning.

“That's a great age. Pretty little thing—all that blonde hair. Gets it from you, huh? I always wanted a daughter, somebody to dress up, like a doll, but all I got is boys.” Then, tapping a finger on the photo, grazing Gary's head: “Mmm, and one of each, too. That's lucky.”

Toby nodded. “The classic family model, yeah. It's like we were intelligently designed.”

“Almost the same age, looks like—a year's difference?” Another nod. “Irish twins, my Old Man'd call it.”

“I'm...not Irish.”

“Nope, you're _all_ Anglo-Saxon, aren't ya, counsellor? Which is good. Makes it easier to figure out where to pledge.”

That last part, baffling as it initially seemed, was enough to make Toby finally look up. The person behind her turned out to be an older woman with pale, narrow eyes—grey from some angles, blue from others, much the same way Toby's could seem almost yellow in a certain shade of light—and a mock-mild smile, built like a middle-aged Valkyrie; she had her slightly greying sandy hair cut in what looked like a sort of an angled bob, layered and brushed straight back with her bang-tips brushing her collar. What Toby would figure out later on was that Vee usually wore it in a short pony-tail to reveal her skull's shaven sides, along with the easily-hidden scalp tattoos marking her out as Aryan Sisterhood—something to save for the second date, definitely, especially with anyone she'd assumed might be a particularly skittish customer. Prison-cut blackwork turned bluish with age, slightly keloided, much like the White Power sigil between her shoulderblades, or the lightning bolts underneath her collarbones: a blood drop cross behind her left ear, discreet but distinct, plus the Futhark rune Uruz behind her right.

She'd probably chosen the latter because it could be seen as corresponding to “V”, even though that was one of the letters Futhark didn't really cover; it actually meant dross, or rain, or an aurochs, depending on which system you went with. Toby found the last potential interpretation the funniest, not that she'd ever tell Vee that—yeah, you basically labelled yourself forever as a prehistoric giant cow, no big deal. _The aurochs is proud and has great horns/It is a very savage beast, a roamer of the moors/It is a creature of mettle..._

“Do I...know you?” she'd asked, slowly, fearing the worst; that their paths might have crossed during a drunk, for example, or that she might have handled— _mis_ -handled—a case of Vee's during the first years after she passed the bar, her brief flirtation with criminal law, before to deciding to specialize in corporate contract negotiations. To which Vee had simply shaken her head, assuring her: “Nope, I heard you comin' in, with Ortolani; you're pretty loud when you're tryin' to make a good impression, might want to work on that.”

“My husband's shrink says it's social anxiety,” Toby offered.

“Huh. Take anything for it?”

“Booze, mainly. Up 'til now.” A pause. “But I guess _that_ 's going to change.”

To which Vee basically just nodded, like: _Guess so._ Then cast a pointed look at the empty chair at Toby's elbow, eyebrow raised, waiting patiently for Toby to give her consent before ankling it out and sitting down; for somebody who'd barely graduated high school, she was _good_ at this stuff, as Toby would later be forced to admit. “So...you never been inside before, I bet, not even to visit, am I right? Yeah, 'course I am. And here we are in max security, about as far away from Club Fed as you get; must have you feelin' pretty vulnerable, law degree or not.”

“If you're looking for a consultation, I feel it's only fair to warn you I've been disbarred, miss...”

“Mrs. And I know all about that, counsellor; not a lot of secrets, in this place. No, I'm just doin' welcome wagon duty, before you start parking yourself in wrong place and racking up demerit points. 'Cause gangs aside, it's really the hacks you have to be careful about; they're the goddamn worst, believe you me. Take any excuse do a cavity search, then plant shit on you just so they can get you alone, which is when one thing does tend to lead to another. Bastards treat this place like a singles bar, at the best of times; catch their eye and they'll violate you for fun, lit and fig.”

“I'd heard that.”

“Yeah? Well, it's all true. 'Specially the niggers.”

“...excuse me, _what?_ ”

“You heard me. Sweetpea.”

Later on, Toby remembers Jill Robson boasting about how Vee once fought a (black, male) hack hand-to-hand, trapped between contact doors—only lasted maybe three minutes, during which he broke her nose and blacked both her eyes, but she'd eventually managed to get him in a choke-hold after he bounced his stick off the wall trying to crack her skull, disarming himself accidentally; they'd wrestled back and forth 'til the SORT team separated them, him trying to smash her free against first one door, then the other, while she just held on grimly and wound his radio's cord around his neck. Tapped by Brotherhood sources, the Klan had apparently sent her a good enough lawyer to stop her from being slapped with felony assault afterwards and get her only six more months added in on top of her original bid, mainly by painting her as an institutionalized victim and the guard as a system-jacking abuser. Because there were obviously more than a few Separatism-minded people out there who remembered her late husband, Mr Arlen Schillinger—martyr for his own Self-Segregationist Cause, which was now Vee's—almost as fondly as she did; nice to have people looking out for you on that level, Toby could only assume, even if it was just on the basis of mere shared prejudices.

Then again, at least Vee'd known better than to even try and steer her own defence, even in her original trial—aggravated assault in the first degree, eight years, possibility of parole in five. Which definitely put her ahead of Toby in the I Got Fucked By The Legal System (And It Was My Own Damn Fault) sweepstakes.

Anyhow: It's a good story, and Toby thinks it's as likely to be true as not, from what she's observed of Vee since; she's certainly always been quick enough to knock fellow cons down and stomp on them for infractions as simple as looking at her (or Toby) wrong, even palm a shank from somebody else and perforate anybody who really got in her way, make sure they were in no condition to give conflicting testimony, then use her own weapon as a drop piece. Must be pretty hard to fingerprint prison blades overall, or Vee'd still be in jail.

Which she isn't, not anymore—out there somewhere walking around, instead, with her boys. Probably not getting into trouble, at least not yet, in and between recruiting for the RaHoWa; trying not to, anyways. Trying to stay out for just as long as she can, before her own nature inevitably betrays her, and sends her orbiting on back to Oz.

 _I did that,_ Toby knows, whenever she lets herself think about it; _unleashed the widow Schillinger back on an unsuspecting populace, let her walk free, even with all I know about her—what I've seen done, what I've helped cover up, what I've allowed to happen. What I've colluded with, inside and out._

As if she could ever have really chosen _not_ to, though, and had any chance at all of walking away free herself—free to come back to Giles, to the kids, to anything even slightly resembling “real” life. As _if._

*** 

When she went to McManus to ask him to let her transfer to Vee's pod from Adebisi's, the man had stared at her outright. “You do know who Vee Schillinger _is,_ right, Beecher?”

“The first person in Em City who hasn't tried to knock me down and steal my phone card number, at least not yet?” Toby'd shot back. “Yeah, I know. But it's not like I have a whole lot of other applicants promising to keep me safe, let alone teach me how to keep _myself_ safe.” Unable to quite keep from continuing on, with a tiny flare of spite: “For damn sure haven't been much help with that yourself, in actual fact, thus far.”

It was easy to make McManus color up simply by pointing out where he fell down on the job, she'd already found, given how often he did. On the one hand, the guy was juggling so many different plates, it was amazing he remembered to zip up after bathroom breaks; on the other, his standards for good behavior did seem pretty fucking skewed half the time, considering the parameters he was already operating within. But whenever you pressed him on it his first impulse was always to get pissy, and today was no exception: “Yeah, well, can't exactly expect people to give you the benefit of the doubt around here, considering—I mean, they all know what you did, and half of 'em have kids themselves. You're never gonna be popular.”

Without thinking: “I have kids too. And it was an _accident._ ”

“A shoot-your-gun-off-into-a-crowd type 'accident,' uh huh—get Sister Pete to explain why that really doesn't let you out of _shit,_ next time you two have a heart to heart. At any rate: okay, I'll put it through, but no take-backsies; she and her neo-Nazi sewing circle happen to do something offends your delicate sensibilities, you're still on your own for at least the first six months. 'Cause I'm not a fucking travel agent, you get that, Beecher?”

“Duly gotten, sir.”

“Fine. Then clear the hell out of my office.”

Walking out, she'd spent maybe a second wondering if McManus really thought she was being manipulated rather than choosing which way to jump, if he was really so gender presentation-blinded he actually couldn't see she was walking right into this...arrangement with coldly open eyes, like any other of the many fine marriages she'd brokered between two equally sociopathic corporations. How after so many days of constant panic, adrenaline sparking every time someone looked her way—of wondering when getting beaten up was inevitably going to escalate into getting screwed with the nearest handy object, then beaten up again for good measure—it had actually been a positive relief to finally be moved on, especially by somebody who said they didn't like to share. Toby didn't want to _be_ shared, so that seemed like it should work out well, except in certain situations.

Thus it was that the very next morning, when Wangler furled her lip at Toby at breakfast and sneered: “You the Aryans' bitch now, huh, _lawyer?_ ” Toby was able to reply, with a cool approximation of hauteur and barely a backwards glance at Vee, who she nevertheless knew must be watching her newest acquisition's attempt to posture with both arms crossed and head cocked, from the comfort of a favored seat amongst her converts: “ _One_ Aryan's bitch, yes. Maybe you know her.” And see the depth-charge go off in the kid's eyes, same way she'd seen a weird ripple go 'round the card-tables a few days earlier, after crazy old Bertha Rebadow had beckoned her to come sit down next to her and Gussie Hill—who'd immediately flipped her dreads back, given her wheels a spin to re-angle herself, then asked Beecher: “They put you in with Adebisi, right; big African bitch with the shaved head, blacker'n me, doin' her best to look like a man?” Adding, when Beecher nodded: “She show you that Pringles tube she packin' down them draws yet, or what?”

Second night in, it turned out, on that one—right after she'd stolen Toby's watch, but before she'd turned her Walkman on high and stretched out for the night, assuring Beecher: _I won't be focking you tonight, leetle feesh-belly; wahnt you to theenk about eet a good long time, first._ Which maybe might've formed a sort of pattern for Simone, one Vee was well aware of; like any other predator, Beecher could only assume she probably tracked her competition's hunting methodology pretty closely, if only to avoid fighting over the same piece of meat. Like those rhetorical flourishes Toby'd so admired during their initial conversation, the interruptions followed by elaboration which tricked even an initially uninterested listener into wanting to participate, it was all part of Vee's arsenal—something Beecher, as a fellow career bullshit artist, found distressingly easy to admire.

Back to Vee during that first pitch session, then, laying a hand on her bad arm, heavy yet gentle. Observing: “Looks like everybody in here's got a crack in already, huh? That sucks. Why don't you fight back?”

“Not exactly my area of expertise. Besides which, what they all think I've done? I did it. So maybe...it's justice.”

Another shrug. “Of a sort, sure. And I think you _do_ feel guilty, way I hear you cryin' every night, through the wall.” She gestured, connecting the dots, and Beecher realized Vee's pod was basically right next door, which she supposed made a creepy sort of sense. “But that's why you need to get the hell outta there, not to mention start learnin' how to defend yourself and quick, so you can live to re-brand.”

Toby looked down again, that sarcastic little cat-sneeze laugh Giles always claimed he thought was cute tearing out of her, before she even had a chance to try and suppress it. “Oh, that's catchy. You say that to _all_ the girls?”

“ _My_ girls? Bet your ass.” As Beecher shot her the skeptical side-eye: “Still, what d'you think you are to Adebisi, right now, exactly? Furniture she's revving up to get high and fuck sometime soon, that's what. You good with that?”

“Not particularly, but...oh, waaaaait. This is just because you don't want a front-row view of some white chick getting turned out by some big black stud.”

Vee huffed. “Wouldn't be able to call myself much of an Aryan, I approved of that happening, Right now, though, what I need is more in the order of free legal advice—and you're qualified for _that,_ right? Went to Harvard and everything.”

“I'm a corporate litigator...was. I've never done appeals.”

“Yeah, well, you're better than nothing.”

Beecher turned, gave her a long stare, trying to reckon her sincerity. “Is the advice for you?” she asked, finally, to which Vee shook her head, explaining: “Naw, it's for one of my kids. Not out there; my _prison_ kids.”

Another nod: “Right, right—your gang, your click. So...is that what I'd end up as, if I say yes? Or is it more like you're the Dad, looking for a brand-new Mommy?”

Vee drew herself up, full-size. “No Dad in _my_ family,” she said, voice dipping even lower. “Dad's dead. That would've been Mr Schillinger, murdered six years back, by cowards who didn't like what he preached—or what I do.”

“Which is?”

“Consanguinity, counsellor. Blood, that's the most important thing, inside _or_ out. You make your family where you can find it, and the closer the blood, the closer the trust.”

“That...actually makes a lot of sense, give or take the whole Hitler Was Right thing.”

A grim smile. “Yeah, well, there's a reason we recruit in jails. Anyhow, in my family, _I_ 'm the Mom, and you—you're whatever you want to be, basically, 'long as you agree to help my gals out.”

Seemed too good to be true and probably was, so Toby opened her mouth to object again, then closed it: what the fuck was she objecting _to,_ after all? She already knew what would happen if she went back to Adebisi's, and this would be—well, fuck, it wasn't like she really knew, on the scale of goddamn bad indeed to potentially even worse. But if nothing else, she was fairly sure it'd at the very least be different.

In that moment, under Vee's deceptively clear gaze, she knew she'd already made the choice which would dictate the rest of her sentence. So: “...well, okay, then,” she replied, at last. “Why the fuck not?”

*** 

_So now I pay you back, right?_ Toby found herself whispering from the bottom bunk that night when the lights snapped off, only to feel Vee shake her head instead, assuring her—as though giving her an easy out—

_People are gonna assume it's happening either way, but up to you, I guess._

_I dated a girl before once, at Harvard,_ Beecher offered, but Vee didn't seem too impressed. _Oh, uh huh?_ she replied. _That's nice. Whatever you 'n' me do together if we do it, though, you can take it from me—it ain't gonna be like DATING._

Toby remembered flushing, feeling ridiculous; she turned on her side, trying her level best not to feel rejected. Said, after a minute: _I know. I just...all I'm saying is, considering the show I put on for McManus today, what makes you think I care what people think of me?_

Vee chuckled. Observing: _That was really true, counsellor, I don't think you'd've turned out to be a drunk..._ Then concluding, after a long pause: _...but hell, I'm only human._

It was a smart way to play it, Toby eventually figured out, long after it was way too late to make any difference. But then, Vee liked to make you think things had been your own idea all along, if she could; she wasn't as good at it as Rhea O'Reilly overall, or even as Chris, but in the latter case you could certainly see where Chris might've gotten her first lessons about lying as a way of life.

Vee liked to talk, for sure—liked the sound of her own voice, even though Toby could only assume most of what she preached probably came straight from the late lamented Mr. S's lectures. And maybe it made her feel closer to him to parrot his words, given how persuasive she could be with them, but part of their arrangement from the start had been that Toby'd made it fairly clear she wasn't ever going to consider herself an Aryan per se, except genetically; not her business, as she too often had to reiterate to other Sisterhood members, Robson in particular. Yet Vee didn't argue, so long as Toby agreed not to contradict her in public.

Then again, in Oz, almost everything _was_ done publicly, down to and including Beecher and Vee's nightly “business.” It stopped bothering her sooner than she'd ever expected it to; sheer gratitude splash-over from no longer having to worry about poachers, or handily replacing one addiction with another, the kind that wasn't as likely to gut her allowance or fuck with her chances of getting parole as letting her anxiety build up until she was “forced” to get big-ass drunk on 100-proof hooch made from stolen cafeteria fruit and vegetables. Not to mention that the dynamics were...well, a modicum of performative dominance/submission sometimes took the sting out of things, oddly enough, especially when played through with someone who didn't mind all too much if you sometimes marked your limits by biting them, since—on some very basic level—they kind of liked the pain.

“Who did your hair?” Giles asked her, during their first contact visit, studying that ridiculously elaborate coif of French braids Vee had wrestled Toby's blonde mop into; “My cellmate,” Toby remembers replying, watching him closely. And: “Oh, well...she's good,” was all he could apparently come up with, after a moment. “It looks...you look good, Toby. Really.”

“Not drinking must agree with me,” Toby agreed, nodding. Biting back all the other things she could have said instead at the same time, like: _Yeah, she IS good, isn't she? Wouldn't think so, considering she runs the local Neo-Nazi faction. Anyhow, she likes to dress me up like a doll because she never had a daughter, and she knows I have kids but I think she doesn't consider me a fit mother, given I ran over somebody else's child when I was drunk, let alone a real live adult. Also we fuck almost every night and all the people around us get to watch, because the walls in Em City are made out of plexiglass, for some insane reason..._

_Anyway, how are you, baby? How's Gary? How's Holly? Give them my love._

So many things she still doesn't want to tell Giles, even now, or any of the rest of her family. Like: "Yeah, basically the two people I got to know best inside Oz were a woman who literally thinks black people are a different species and her friend, who she willed me to like a freaking piece of jewelry after she got parole before I did—this girl Chris, who's sort of like Aileen Wuornos, the sexy version..."

"...that doesn't sound so bad," she can almost hear her father saying faintly, and feels her stomach lurch. Knowing she would have to answer, if she was anything like honest: "No, Dad—just wait."

Vee never really did give up on her fixation with Toby's hair, either—made for a nice stress reliever when they were sitting around in the quad, she supposes, something for Vee to play with while Toby used her thigh for a back-rest and studied other people's parole applications, as well as under other circumstances: combing it, re-sectioning it, carding it with one iron-fingered hand like a cat kneading bread. Using it for reins in their pod at night, a nice little extra method of control, knotting it 'round her fist so tight Toby's eyes started to sting: _You gonna do what I tell you, sweetpea, or not? Think you can back-talk me just 'cause we're alone?_

Like anywhere in Oz was really _private,_ for Christ's sake, or for more than five minutes at a stretch. Like anything they “had” couldn't be randomly taken away at any given fucking time, for no very apparent fucking reason.

 _You know what I need,_ Toby would snarl, mid-wrangle, knees burning, _so give it to me, already!_ And Vee would just laugh, less annoyed than amused by her mainly performative rage, her truncated toddler spasms of acting out, no matter how much she might enjoy punishing them. Replying: _Yeah, I guess I do by now, at that. You contrary little shyster bitch._

Mommy Vee, with her strong-pumped arms and her strangely comforting embrace, her flattish breasts a far softer place to land than most, even when she finished up the hug by sticking her tongue in Toby's mouth and grabbing her by the pussy, making a weird little lioness's growl. Prison Click Mentorship 101 with a side order of White Power cant, gently threatening cunnilingus and extremely well-practiced finger- to fist-fucking, none of it very optional at all—the funny part being, of course, that it was Toby who kept on not only initiating those third and fourth options but also driving that aspect of it, in most cases. Because she needed something to make her feel alive and alert, some sort of punishment to feed the guilt monster and get her straight enough to plead cases, to work with the Legal Aid Project first on behalf of Vee's “kids,” then on behalf of Vee herself, so she could get back to her actual progeny. Because, as Vee so often said: _I don't wanna start a race riot in HERE, you morons—I wanna get back out THERE, and help win a race WAR._

(Toby face-down between Vee's legs with Vee's head between hers, rotating her first three fingers inside Vee while frisking the hood over her berry-red button between two knuckles of her other hand, feeling for the g-spot like she was picking a lock; Vee sticking both thumbs inside Toby and pulling horizontally, laughing through her nose as she watched her interior lips open wide, give a series of wet, swollen pulses, blooming like a rose made from meat. Letting the overflow drip down into Toby's ass-crack before licking it clean over and over, bottom to top and deeper each time, like a mother cat cleaning some particularly dirty kitten— _what an honest-to-God SLUT you are, counsellor,_ she liked to announce, to no one in specific, the wider Toby gaped or the harder she whined for punishment: _Christ, just stick it in and TWIST it, Verena! Give me bruises, bite me, make it fucking HURT—_

_You'd like that, huh? So everybody knows you're mine?_

_...yes, uh, YES..._

Slapping her tattooed breast hard enough to make it sting, then, blush even redder than the rest of her: _Like this isn't enough, all on its own? Shit, you're greedy._ To which Toby'd just snap back, panting: _'Rich girl,' remember? So take it out on me, you White Trash bitch,_ just for the satisfaction of feeling Vee's teeth on her clit, sucking like she aimed to pull it out at the root.)

 _I picked a bad bitch that day, turns out,_ Vee'd murmur into the back of her neck, on more than one occasion. _And that's fine with me, you just keep to your place; less work on MY plate, lookin' after you._ Which sounded suspiciously gangsta to Toby, not that she was about to point that out.

 _Work hard, play hard—_ that was another of Vee's mottos. She knew enough about history to believe devoutly that the Vikings had done the same, and better yet, her years inside had taught her she didn't need to alleviate whatever feelings of helplessness she might be wrestling with internally by making somebody else feel helpless, especially the person she was sharing a pod with. There was more than enough potential combat to go around.

The ugly truth was, it was Toby—more often than not—demanding that Vee give her orders and set her rules, then enforce them, to both their satisfaction. While Vee just huffed and said: _Man, you remind me of this friend I had back in the day, Sasha Ross—that hooker would fuck anything that moved and most things that don't. Kind of born whore who'd flash you her snatch for a hello, then tell me I had ten minutes to get my hand out of her pants. And you a stuck-up little Harvard girl, too, cupcake; Ivy League education really did YOU right, from what I can see._

And: _So just pull back out, you don't like the result,_ Toby would spit, mainly to get her skull rapped, hard enough to make her weak eyes cross. While Vee would grunt, by way of reply: _Think you're getting off THAT easy? Bitch, please._

But: _We all got our fetishes, baby,_ Chris Keller would tell her, later on. And shit if that wasn't true, as Toby already well fucking knew already, by that point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All chapter titles are lyrics from Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can," the ultimate fem-Beecher song.


	2. But If You're Getting Any Bright Ideas, Quiet, My Dear

Chris was always asking Toby questions about herself of the sort Vee'd never even vaguely thought to ask, which Toby found first weirdly engaging, then ultimately exhausting—she'd try to shut them down the obvious way, ie by kissing Chris silent and proceeding from there, but that always only lasted so long. Then the interrogation would begin once more, either subtly or overtly, interrupted on occasion by soft touches, murmurs, the kind of casual intimacy Toby was frankly no longer used to, given Vee's version of affection left raw-rubbed sore patches at best and outright scars at worst. But then again, it wasn't like Chris didn't already know _that._

“We were at Lardner together,” she told Toby, one night, after lights-out. “Her 'n' me, Sasha Ross, what-have-you. I was seventeen. They transferred me over from Juvie, after I beat down this bitch tried to do me with a plunger-handle in the storage closet.”

“What was Vee like, back then?”

Chris shrugged. “Hadn't met _Mr Schillinger_ yet,” she replied, with sarcastic emphasis. “Hadn't gotten that Nazi bullshit religion of his, either, so she was just this four-day weekend biker chick who really liked to rumble, didn't matter much over what—I mean, she still didn't drink and still didn't do drugs, 'cause of that asshole Old Man of hers. But if you stepped to her she'd fuck you hard then fuck you UP, you get what I'm sayin?” Quieter then, as Toby nodded, thinking how she'd often assumed Vee probably hated other people for being different long before Mr S., though not as an ideology: “She looked after me; same way she did for you, probably. Though I never did get her initials tattooed on my tit, or anything.”

“I was the one who suggested that, actually,” Toby told her. “To warn other people off, when she wasn't around.”

“Hmmm, okay. It work?”

“Up to a point.”

At that, Chris had just smirked, casting her dark blue eyes up at their pod's ceiling. “Yeah, well—that's just the basic problem with gettin' people out of jail, ain't it? Leaves you defenceless in the crunch, you don't watch out...but you don't have to worry about that with _me,_ baby. Eighty-eight years, possibility of parole in fuckin' fifty.”

“I remember. Shouldn't've taken the bike on your little robbery spree, you wanted to keep things manageable.”

“Maybe so.” After a beat: “You really think that would've helped?”

“...probably not, no.”

Prisoner Number 98K514, Christine Keller—convicted June 16, 1998 of felony murder, two counts of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, robbery, driving under the influence and reckless driving. Usually more of a con artist in her more regular criminal career, specializing in ponzi schemes and variations of the badger game, but high on crystal meth at the time, which probably explained a lot; she'd come in with her arm in a cast, then used it as a weapon in at least two punch-ups. Three ex-husbands, no kids: “They say there's somethin' wrong with me,” she'd explained, a thesis Toby definitely agreed with, overall. And that wasn't even the half of it.

Because: from everything Toby'd learned about her while in close quarters, Chris was indubitably a reflexive charmer and an equally reflexive liar, a stone killer prone to fits of coolly violent jealousy, a potentially diagnosable sociopath. A _serial_ killer, actually, according to grim-faced FBI Agent Taylor, which was pretty impressive, statistically speaking; Chris didn't deny it, except to Taylor's face. She was flexible in a way Toby wasn't, even now, and Vee never could have been, given her permanent widowhood pose: “Only one man for me,” Vee'd told Toby once, an odd little shine in her cold blue-grey eyes, and Toby mainly believed her, though that did seem pretty damn functionally gay, in hindsight—another thing she wouldn't ever have said, either to Vee's face or behind her back. But then again, whether or not Vee really believed that jail constituted a standing excuse to fuck as many girls as she could trick into letting her, both she and Chris had spent far more time in jail already than Toby ever would.

“Bet you went to one of those nice schools, huh, Beech?” Chris asked her, sidelong, as they sat together on the quad, with Chris all slouched down in her seat with her long legs ankle-crossed, a too-sexy human roadblock, and Toby's bare feet balanced in her lap. “Those...what d'ya call 'em, anyhow? Preps?”

“Sure,” Toby answered, eyes still on her book. “I got kicked out of two private academies, best my parents could afford. Then they sent me off to boarding school.”

“Aw, poor you. What for?”

“Running with the wrong crowd, uniform infractions, possession of contraband, inappropriate behavior...” Adding, as Chris waggled her eyebrows, like: _Of a sexual nature? Tell me more, tell me more._ “...underage drinking.”

“Oho, so you were a lush even back then: Tobit Beecher, Portrait of a Teenaged Fuck-Up. That's a sad story, baby.”

“Mmmm. It's a sad world.”

Chris grinned, then paused, apparently thinking. “Up at Lardner, girls used to call _this—_ ” A wide-swept arm, indicating Em City, or perhaps the whole prison. “—the finishing school,” she said, finally. “Know why?”

Turning the page: “I do not. But I assume you're going to tell me.”

“'Cause if you end up in Oz, you're _finished._ 'Cause whatever you are once you get there is just how you're gonna be from then on, the whole rest of your life.”

That did make Toby finally look up, eyes narrowing. “Jesus, _that_ 's bleak. You don't really believe that, do you?”

And: “Oh, I'm fine with it...mostly,” Chris replied, taking a look around to see what hacks were on the floor, not to mention where they might be looking at that very moment—before pulling her in for a tongue-hot kiss, sliding her hand fast up under her shirt so she could cop a feel, ringing one nipple with her thumbnail before giving it a last quick flick, so hard it almost hurt. Then sat back once more, snickering at Toby's stunned look, mouth half open, drawn breath like a barely-repressed hiss; added, with a further wicked twist to her smile: “'Sides, you _like_ how I am, don't tell me you don't—like it good enough when we're alone, anyhow, that's for damn sure. I ain't heard any complaints.”

Toby took a second to order herself, sitting there panting, a furious flush blazing up across both cheeks. “Maybe I don't _complain_ because I know you wouldn't take me seriously, even if I did. Ever think of that?”

“Enough to stop? Nope.”

“Some might call that the very definition of dubious content.”

“Yeah? Well, those people don't know what the hell they're missing; send 'em my way, then check back later. See what they say then.”

That was Chris, though, in a nutshell. Just like Oz was, indeed, very similar to attending the world's worst-policed live-in educational facility: mean girls and meaner jailhouse “studs,” all jockeying for position with lessons to learn—or teach—'round every given corner, the constant stink of sweat, intimate juices and synched period detritus (no tampons available for some reason, only maxi-pads, which the inmates cobbled into everything from shower-room flip-flops to stolen latex glove-sheathed dildo-stuffing). With everyone involved drunk or high half the time, amped up on excess pheremones and estrogen; everybody always scheming on ways to get the fuck out, forming coalitions against the system only to sell each other out at the drop of a metaphorical hat, hoping they wouldn't miss each other once they were safely back in the “real” world.

Yet knowing they probably would, one way or the other. Since the only person who could ever understand what sheer hell being in Oz was like, day to day, would forever have to be somebody who'd been there too.

*** 

“You understand the conditions of your parole, right, Beecher?” Officer Jones asks her, studying her file. “Acquire and maintain employment, receive regular psychiatric counselling...”

“I have a job lined up at my family's firm, doing paralegal work for my brother Angus; I'm going over there today, right after we're done here. My husband's psychiatrist says he doesn't think he can take me on because of conflict of interest, but he's got three alternate recommendations, and I'll be seeing one of them tomorrow.”

“These psychiatrists know your background?”

“If one of them agrees to treat me, I'll get Sister Pete to send them my file. She already said she would, right before I was released.”

“Good stuff. And finally—this is important—attend an addiction recovery program. Not negotiable.”

“Didn't think it would be, considering. Sir.”

Jones shoots her a glance at this, but she just stays in the same position, keeping her face nearly expressionless yet projecting everything he should want to see, in context: compliance, commitment, modesty, humility. Like: _look at my suit, my purse, my shoes, my hair, my lack of makeup; look how harmless I am, how tame. Don't SEEM like someone who almost bit a woman's nipple off once, now, do I—someone who once beat another inmate with a barbell, then painted a smile on her face with my own menstrual blood? Someone who was banging (two) killers on the regular in exchange for protection, 'cause I'm just too weak to look after myself without help?_ And watches for that weird look of subliminal satisfaction to come into his eyes, as it eventually almost always does, with most men in positions of authority: _Aw yeah, you're good and broke now, aren't ya, rich bitch? Oz really beat the fuck out of you, huh, counsellor-no-more?_

But it doesn't, no matter how long Toby waits, which she has to admit actually impresses her. Maybe Jones is a good guy, after all...or a reasonable guy, more like, at the very least. That'd make for a change.

 _Does it say in there how when I finally did get raped, McManus thought a guard might've done it?_ she wonders, staring at the file-folder's outer cardboard shell, blank except for her ID number. _Does it say I never snitched, even though that would've gotten me time off...or how the lead suspect turned up dead later on in a supply closet, air-holed straight through the neck with a drop-piece shank, his pants down around his ankles?_

“Gotta warn you about associating with known felons, too,” Jones continues. “But then, you already know that, right? How you have to tell me if you hear from anybody you did time with, or happen to run across them accidentally? Verena Schillinger, for example...”

Toby nods. “I don't even know where Vee lives, sir. Haven't seen her in years.”

“Yeah. But you helped her get out, it says that here.”

“Well, it was a joint effort: she asked me to look at her parole application, because we were cellmates. Then I found out an old law-school buddy was doing Prisoner Aid in Oz, so I asked him to take a glance at it too.” Pointing to the file: “It should say in there that Khadija Said also worked on Vee's case, even though their viewpoints are diametrically opposed; in return, I did work preparing an appeal for one of her people, Hamida Khan. Eventually, as a result, Khan's sentence was overturned and vacated.”

“It says that. Just like with Jill Robson.”

This time, Toby barely stops herself from shrugging. Just replies, quietly, instead: “Jill wasn't properly Mirandized, as the interrogation room tapes proved. It's a basic mistake, but it happens—I'd've been falling down on the job not to point it out, if I still had my licence.”

“Schillinger must feel like she really owes you for that one.”

“I couldn't tell you what Vee Schillinger feels, Officer; never did know exactly what went on in her head, not really. She's hard to read. Anyhow, we don't choose who we bunk with, even in Em City.”

Jones raises his eyebrows slightly, as though he's caught her in a lie. “Didn't you ask to move in with her, though?”

“Let's call that the best of a bad bargain, maybe. Or...the lesser of two evils.”

Thus implying she does in fact understand how Vee's evil, by some people's standards. And since Jones lets it go by, she guesses he either agrees with the judgement, or simply realizes that harassing Toby isn't going to get Vee in off the street any faster; fine with her, either way. Because a second later, he's hauling out his phone and marking off her appointment in his calendar, with a flourish: _that's you done, for now. Don't leave town_. “See you next week, then, Beecher,” he says. “Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”

“Yessir.”

*** 

Angus isn't at the firm when she gets there, but her parents are—Dad, who she expected to see, along with Mom, who she didn't. They escort her around the office, show her where her desk will be, then take her out for lunch. “We were all so impressed with the work you did, inside, Toby,” her Dad tells her, as the waiter's clearing away, once they've already exhausted everything that her reunion with Giles, Holly and Gary has to offer. “The appeals, I mean...an amazing achievement, when you think about where you were. Though I must admit, I do wish you'd chosen clients that were a bit less...”

“Guilty?” Beecher suggests, taking a sip of her water, wishing like hell it was a martini. “Problem is, they don't put you in Oz for being innocent, Dad. Everybody in there's low-grade bad at the absolute least, including me.”

Now it's her father's turn to flush, glancing down; her mother steps into the breach immediately, that familiar Don't You Dare Be RUDE, Young Lady look on her face. “I don't think you understand just how lucky you really are, Tobit,” she begins, to which Beecher snaps back: “Oh, _don't_ I? No, I really think I do, mother, actually, at this point. I think I'm pretty well aware.”

_The same day I came to Oz, when I was being checked into Em City, somebody got knifed right in front of me—five stabs to the throat and chest, boom, gone. Got blood all over the side of my dress, not that it showed by the time they let me back out. I've done things you couldn't even contemplate since then, and much more than just the once. I have a shank in my coat right now; made it myself. Want me to show you how?_

(And: _Nobody's ever gonna know you the way I do, baby,_ Chris's voice says, at almost the exact same time, in her head. _No one ever could. Not even Vee._ )

She could try pointing out that Hamida Khan was a genuine hero by anybody's standards, someone who'd only ended up in Oz because the rapist she'd been laying the righteous wrath of Allah down on happened to have a heart attack mid-punishment. But then she supposes her Dad would feel obliged to counter with the fact that every other person on whose behalf Toby'd jailhouse-advocated had belonged to the same racist gang her former cellmate led, and who the hell knew where _that_ conversation would end up? With a discussion of why—even after she was finally free of Vee—she'd apparently felt it “necessary” to shack up with yet another violent female offender, a woman who was a person of interest in no less than seven cold cases: four asshole johns known for beating on their pick-ups versus three upper-class, blonde, well-educated lesbians who'd all looked distressingly like Toby herself, once Agent Taylor had laid their photos down with a flourish in the world's most disheartening poker hand?

Sitting there looking at their faces, now both equally stricken, and all the while thinking she should apologize but not knowing exactly to who first, or what for, or how. Or why she would even _want_ to, anyways...'til eventually, it just didn't seem to matter.

“I should call myself a cab,” Toby says, at last, rising. And goes to do just that.

Back at home, she shrugs out of her office drag, pulls on a set of too new to be raggedy sweats, then drops and gives herself a hundred—puts herself through the same gruelling workout routine Vee did almost every day they'd spent together, including a good twenty minutes of shadow-boxing and wrestling practice, blocking and twisting to break holds, ducking invisible punches and dodging invisible thrusts. Hearing that growling voice at the back of her skull throughout, meanwhile, berating and praising her alternately with a fierce, proprietary sort of care: _Yeah, go ahead and fight BACK, you odd little hooker—keep yourself alive, you stubborn fucking donkey, you! Who you think is gonna help replace the race if you let yourself die in here, Beecher? Remember those little blonde angels of yours, huh; you're young, you ain't all tapped out just yet. Could have another three kids easy, you just put your fuckin' over-educated mind to it..._

_Fuck you, Verena!_

_Yeah, that's the way. We'll talk about that part later, cupcake._

Toby closes her eyes, lets Oz wash back over her; feels the hairs on her neck raise, one by one. Lets her hands knit into fists, her lips peel back. Lets herself feel it all, just for five long, slow breaths, because—it's _safe_ right now, sort of. So long as wonderful, clueless Giles isn't here to feel sorry for her, to try and understand her. So long as her kids aren't here to see what an incredible fucking mess she's made of herself, one way or the other.

 _You did this,_ she tells herself, hollowly, feeling sick. _You. Other people too, sure...but just because YOU let them, Toby._

( _They don't put you in Oz for being innocent, Dad._ )

Because: bad as the violence always was, in its moment, the fear of violence—that constant, grinding, _inescapable_ fear—had actually been worse. It was like living in earthquake country, ground always shifting beneath you, a thin skin over lava; the threat of it deformed you, made you grow calluses in weird places, where you least expected them.

 _I mean, isn't this your job?_ She'd asked Vee one time, between sparring matches, when she truly thought she might be on the verge of coughing up a lung. _I handle your kids' pleas and put out, so you keep me safe. Nature of the contract, right?_ To which Vee had just laughed, almost fondly, and replied: _Well, sure...but I'm not gonna be around forever, Toby—not in here, anyway. That's what you're workin' for too, along with all the rest. You do get that, I hope._

_...of course. Of course I do._

_'Kay, good. 'Cause that's YOUR job, counsellor, in actual fact. Just like keeping you safe—and happy—is mine._

Toby remembers pausing, eyes downcast, trying not to shudder as the wave of terror suddenly splashed up over her out of nowhere, a connect-the-dots flood. Asking, carefully: _When you ARE out, though, and...I'm still here—what then? There are a whole lot of people in Em City who don't like me quite as much as you do..._

Vee chuckled: _Well, I'd hope not._ Then added, obviously registering just how white “her” lawyer's face had gone: _Hey now, though; look at me, Tobit. Look up. Yeah, that's it._

Toby swallowed. _Okay,_ she replied, raising her eyes by increments, through force of will alone: Vee's neck, Vee's chin, Vee's lips, nose, eyes. That calm, level gaze, so hot and cool at once, capable of almost anything.

 _You're MINE,_ Vee told her, expansively, like it was something she really should thank her for. _Check the mark I gave you in the mirror sometime, you ever feel tempted to forget it: that's on you now and for always, no matter what. You belong to me, and everyone here knows what that means, or oughtta. They'll respect it, too, they know what's good for 'em._

A nod, carefully looking down again, unwilling to challenge her directly. _Yeah, maybe,_ Beecher agreed, slow. _Or...maybe the minute you're out the gate, they'll be more than willing to do whatever it takes to hurt you, by hurting me. See how that works?_

For a breathless moment, she expected true physical push-back: a slap, a punch, a bruising pinch, a skull-rap pitched at just the right level to make her temples ring. This time, however, Vee simply laughed outright, folding her in; ruffled her hair like she was Holly, for Christ's sake, not the woman she let use her like a stress relief device every goddamn night. Assuring Toby: _No reason to fret over that just yet, sweetpea. We got a LOT of time left to get through together, still._

 _Maybe I do need to make a few new friends, though,_ Beecher thought to herself that night, almost as soon as Vee was asleep, like she'd believed she might've been able to read her mind somehow, if Beecher'd only dared to consider the idea earlier on. _Just for a rainy day._ And luckily, if that word could even be applied to Oz, the next few days brought a flood of new inmates...amongst them, a certain young Irish hood-rat named Rhea O'Reilly.

*** 

Once the (co-)lead mover and shaker in a neighborhood crew called the Bridge Street Gang that specialized in moving heroin and stolen goods, O'Reilly didn't look like all too much, coming in: a skinny, flat-chested Irish hellcat with disordered brown hair in a slightly butch flat-top cut, eyes the sharp green of badly-printed counterfeit money. Her smile pulled a scar tight on her chin, revealing bad Hell's Kitchen teeth and a cat's pointed tongue, but what she lacked in presentation she more than made up with in canniness; uneducated but intelligent, not to mention completely ruthless, she had a native strategist's mind, capable of thinking up interlocking dance routines so slick she could've won trophies on the competitive ballroom circuit. Everything was a waltz to her, or maybe a cellblock tango, handing off partner to partner to partner until (almost inevitably) somebody ended up dead, though nobody could ever quite remember where the killing impulse had first originated from, afterwards.

As fate would have it, it was Dina Ortolani who fell afoul of O'Reilly first—they had history together, as even O'Reilly would admit. “Bitch thinks I'm the only reason she's in here,” Rhea said, cutting the cards for a game between herself, Hill, Rebadow and Beecher, who was taking an eyestrain break from reading up on cases to cite that'd been overturned on improper rights-readings. “Like it's my own fuckin' fault she shot me in the chest, and I had the bad taste to keep on livin'.”

“Why'd she shoot you?” Hill asked, as O'Reilly shrugged, replying: “'Cause she thought I was sleepin' with her husband—see what I mean? The whole thing was just a stupid-ass misunderstanding.”

Skeptical: “So you _ain't_ been sleepin' with him.”

“Oh well, you wanna get technical...” O'Reilly grinned, unable to keep her game face entirely tight. “See, it _happened,_ but—from my point of view, 'sleepin' with' is definitely talking it up a bit. 'Sides, the guy was a complete asshole; that whole thing was more like a mistake I made, with my pants off...” After another pause: “...like, maybe a couple of times.”

“Guess Dina didn't see it that way,” Beecher observed, studying her hand. “Anybody have any fours?”

“Go fuck yourself, counsellor,” Bertha Rebadow responded, primly, which Beecher had learned by then was the Oz way of saying “Go fish.”

“Nope,” O'Reilly agreed. “So yeah, that's why she stuck my head in the toilet, that crazy wop. Hey, and she really don't like _you_ neither, does she? What's that about?”

“I ran over somebody's kid while I was drunk. She disapproves.”

“Yeah? Crime twin, put it here!” O'Reilly reached across the table to fist-bump Beecher, who sat there bemused, 'til she realized it was just a ruse O'Reilly was using to try and catch a glimpse of her hand. “That's pretty much what _I_ did, ya boil it down. Anyhow—how come Schillinger calls you her lawyer, anyway?”

“Because Ms. Beecher _is_ a lawyer,” Rebadow explained, while Beecher shook her head. “I've been disbarred, so...no, not really. And I keep telling her to call me her legal consultant.”

“Not a lot of people get to _tell_ that woman shit, from what I hear. Which makes you interesting, in my book.”

A few days later, the quad was buzzing with the news that Dina Ortolani'd suffocated an AIDS patient McManus had assigned her to look after, then drawn a beating that landed her in isolation, tied down and sedated. Which meant she was in no shape to resist when somebody bribed a hack to be let in, splashed rubbing alcohol all over her and lit a match. Over the next forty-eight hours, the blame for Ortolani's murder landed first on a gangsta girl named Tishaun Post, who was quickly discovered killed in a way that suggested Mafia payback, then on Post's gangsta faction leader Jethra Keane, who'd had a longstanding grudge against Ortolani for beating Keane's sister Billie up after she came onto her in the shower. Post's death hit Keane hard, softening her up for Khadija Said's proselytization—but by the time she'd converted to Islam, the fix was already in: the Italians, led by Nina Schibetta and Chiara Pancamo, arranged a hit on Keane which landed her on Death Row after killing one of her attackers.

“Looks like the niggers, wops and Spics are takin' each other out,” Vee commented, approvingly. “Less work for the rest of us.” But Beecher shook her head.

“Rebadow says that's not what happened at all,” she replied, still making notes; Vee huffed, unconvinced. Pointing out, as she did: “That old bitch is crazy as a shithouse rat, Toby. Woman thinks God talks to her, for Christ's sake.”

“Yeah, maybe so. But nevertheless—her logic's pretty persuasive.”

“Explain,” Vee ordered, turning to fix her with a stare.

“In law, we say 'cui bono'; that means 'who benefits?' And at every link in the chain, here, there's really only one person who got everything they wanted out of what just happened: Rhea O'Reilly.”

“You're shittin' me.”

“Not at all. Who paid off a guard to get Post a job in the AIDS ward? O'Reilly, in return for a place in Keane's tits trade. Who ratted her out to Schibetta and Pancamo after, ostensibly to get the heat off Keane, but actually for a bigger piece of the Italian side of the pie? O'Reilly. Who let the two Spanish chicks into the gym when she knew Keane would be in there alone, supposedly to meet _her?_ O'Reilly. So now Keane's off the table and the gangstas can't compete with the Italians anymore, meaning they have to adjust to being adjuncts to the Mafia instead—and who gets control of their action in Keane's place?”

“O'Reilly?” Another nod. “Huh. That's...really something.”

“Isn't it?” Beecher agreed, leaning her head back for Vee to stroke and angling into it like a cat, the way she knew Vee liked it. Might have even purred a bit, if she'd been able to; Jesus, it was nice to actually be allowed to really _think_ on occasion, at least about stuff more interesting than whether they'd be having those grody fake chicken nuggets for dinner again or which of the C.O.s was fucking who, McManus very much included—according to the rumor mill, he'd already slept his way through the entire female staff, but was thankfully a bit too moral to start on the prisoners.

A week after Dina Ortolani went up in flames, O'Reilly sidled over. “Hey, Beech,” she said. “Lookin' good, lady.” “Filing my my nails and staying pretty,” Beecher replied, deadpan, while Vee cut her eyes both their way, unamused. “Need to stop harassin' my lawyer, O'Reilly, you want to keep those Lucky Charms of yours where you like 'em,” she barked from her usual table across the quad, where she, Robson and Marta Mack were playing hearts. Only for all three of them to hear C.O. Mineo snort as he went by, throwing back: “That stuck-up bitch of yours is a _lawyer_ same way you're a damn political prisoner, Schillinger,” but Vee just shot him the finger.

O'Reilly wanted Beecher to look over her case, to see if there was any chance of her getting to jump on the appeals train as well, and Beecher had to admit that the very idea of screwing over the system currently engaged in screwing _her_ over by helping the woman she'd just watched (albeit obliquely) maneuver her way to the almost-top of Oz's internal drug importation and sales game over a string of metaphorical graves walk out of Oz gave her, Beecher, just a tiny flare of sick excitement. But it only took one glance to see the task was impossible; O'Reilly'd been right to call them crime twins, in a way. There was no immediately accessible trick she could find to overturn O'Reilly's conviction with, to wipe away her sure and certain guilt, any more than she could legally dispose of her own.

“Two counts of vehicular manslaughter, five counts of reckless endangerment, possession of a controlled substance, criminal possession of a weapon, parole violation—life imprisonment, up for parole in twelve. I know you don't want to hear it, Rhea, but this really was the best you could expect to get, court-appointed or no court-appointed.”

O'Reilly slapped her hand down on the library table. “ _Fuck!_ Well...that's kinda what I thought, but thanks for the help, man. Don't got much to pay you with, though, right at the minute—” She looked around, pursed lips twisting. “Been fuckin' a couple of the hacks for extra privileges, so maybe...”

“Oh no, thanks anyway.”

“Really? Could hook ya up with some _dick,_ at least, even if ya don't want anything else. Or some hooch.”

“No, no, that's okay, really.”

That grin again, the scar curving extra-tight: “Mmm-hmh. Or maybe you might be interested in something just a little more—portable.” Without waiting for Beecher's next question, O'Reilly slid her hand underneath the table and rapping her knuckles against the metal top, twitching first one brow then the other, like: _c'mon, bitch, don't make me beg._ And after a moment, Beecher gave in, curiosity getting the better of her good judgement; she slid her hand in too, palm up, tightening it when O'Reilly dropped something small, round and slick into its center.

“Now that,” O'Reilly murmured in her ear, “is some damn fine China White you got right there, Beech, direct from Donna Schibetta's own pipeline. Just sniff it off your fingernail and you get a buzz smooths every wrinkle outta prison life, right on down to the ground.”

Beecher felt her chest tighten, mouth gone abruptly dry. “Um, I...no, I can't do that, sorry; you'll have to take it back. Vee...doesn't like drugs.”

“Yeah, I heard that. Good thing she don't have to, huh?” Then, as Beecher still tried to demur: “C'mon, you work hard, man, anybody can see that; this place is hard enough without gettin' high, for shit's sake. Give yourself a break.”

“Maybe I should,” Beecher agreed, knowing on some level she shouldn't...on _every_ level, really. But then—

 _—that's what EVERY junkie thinks, you selfish cunt,_ Vee would eventually snarl at her, when at last she found out. _'Cause they're all stupid goddamn cowards who can't think past the next bump, the next jolt, the next bottle. And they know if they do it then they're gonna fuck up, 'cause that's just what junkies DO, Tobit: they fuck up, and fuck shit up, in the motherfuckin' bargain...but so long as it gets 'em high, so what? They don't give a crap._

_Which is why they always go on ahead and do it anyhow, no matter the fuckin' cost to themselves. Or to anybody else._

*** 

At the height—or depths—of her _previous_ addiction, alcohol had blunted the world for Beecher at its source, made all the ridiculously simple things she'd once worried over dim and small and far away, as beautifully distant and completely unnecessary as if she was viewing them through the up-turned bottoms of two empty wine bottles at once. Heroin, on the other hand, made everything slow, and soft, and bright, and _fun._ She couldn't remember having had any fun, for...Jesus, how long, exactly? Long before Oz, and wasn't that just so _sad_? Wasn't it just so immeasurably fucking sad that she could have had the chance to be happy, chance after chance after chance, yet simply thrown them all away in turn, because she'd been congenitally unable to recognize them, when they came?

With what she'd later recognize as appalling rapidity, Beecher's days became reduced to mere snatches of opportunity, everything outside the time she spent giggling on O'Reilly's bunk like a naughty schoolgirl reduced to static as she surfed towards the next moment she'd be able to catch her co-conspirator's eye, waiting on a wink and a nod to find some excuse to slip away from Vee's watchful eye and escape from Oz, one brief snort at a time. It amazed her how the Irish woman was able to compartmentalize so efficiently, still managing to run tits for the Italians and fend off her gangsta “buddies'” coup attempts, seemingly without ever missing a beat—Adebisi and Wangler were a thing now, apparently, taking big shared steps while coming up from behind. Yet maybe it shouldn't have been such a surprise; O'Reilly'd obviously been flirting with heroin's charms for some time now, adept as she was at shrugging off the drug's influence to save her own ass from various set traps and sudden ambushes. Beecher herself, however...

Roaming swoonily arm in arm with O'Reilly on the Em City upper deck with their heads bent together, whispering not-exactly-secrets in each other's ears and laughing like loons; licking the last of their latest shared bump from Rhea's shamrock-tattooed hand, the web of flesh between thumb and fore-finger, only to feel it burn on the way down. And hearing her tell her, words gone soft and slow in the after-effect: “Y'know, Schillinger...'slike she still thinks I'm gonna turn Nazi or somethin', jus' 'cause McManus says she's my _sponsor,_ 'n' shit. Know what she told me, th'other day?”

“Couldn't even begin to guess.”

“How half the, like...DNA in Ireland comes from when th' Vikings came over, rapin' chicks and takin' slaves, so that makes me, like...a secret German, or somethin'.”

Beecher squinted and shook her head, the lights on either side of her starting to leave trails. “I'm pretty sure what she meant was...half the DNA in _Norway_ is _Irish._ For similar reasons.”

O'Reilly: “Yeah, well, six a' one, man—'m still not in'erested, so no fuckin' sale. Swastikas creep me out, an' I ain't shavin' _this_ for anybody.” And here she pointed at her own short crop of mouse-colored hair with what looked for all the world like like genuine pride, making Beecher dissolve in a sudden laughing fit; O'Reilly first looked insulted, then grinned as well, snorting through her nose. “Hey, you're okay, ya know that? Lawyer.”

“Don't exactly think everybody here shares...that opinion, Rhea.”

“Aw, well, fuck 'em, y'know? Ain't _your_ fault you come from money, or went t'Harvard. An' as for Vee 'n' all that...you did what'cha had to, right? Put y'self first, like every other bitch in here, an' they damn well know it. We ain't so different.”

“...thanks.”

The which exchange, in turn, immediately cast Beecher's addled mind back to just a few days before—that moment when she'd finally realized O'Reilly probably kept her supplied with free samples on the off-chance that hanging with Beecher might be a fount of useful information on the Neo-Nazi side of things. _I mean, Schillinger talks to you, right?_ Rhea'd asked, to which Beecher had immediately replied: _She talks AROUND me, yes. To be honest, though, sometimes I'm not listening._

_Aw, don't sell yourself short, Beech; you're a smart fuckin' cookie. Somethin' tells me, a part of you's ALWAYS listening._

Not smart enough, however, apparently. Since the minute they disentangled themselves, Toby found herself happily swanning 'round the very next corner with her nose in the air and her attention elsewhere, right into Vee, surrounded by the core of her click: Robson, Mack, Gorman, that chick with the shaved head and a massive lightning-bolt scalp tattoo. Vee, who grabbed her by upper arm and chin simultaneously, holding her still so she could examine her red-rimmed eyes, her inflamed nostrils, that highly suspicious dusting of something white on her upper lip. Demanding, as she did—

“Beecher! Are you fuckin' _high_?”

“Um—”

“And don't you even try lyin' to me, either, cupcake, 'cause I'll pull your messed-up junkie fuckin' head right off, if you do. Consider that your first _and_ last warning.”

Whatever retort Beecher might have been considering died in her throat the minute she saw that look in Vee's eyes—same one she'd had just before laying out that nameless gangsta bitch who'd been dumb enough to try and cram her breast in Beecher's mouth a month or so before (not to mention too dumb to think Beecher might respond by biting down hard enough to leave a permanent ring of teeth-marks around her areola) with a single punch, then stomping on her head in the ensuing scrum before coolly walking away, letting the crowd do the rest of her work for her. So: “Yes, ma'am,” was all Beecher said instead, eyes downcast, voice shrunken and reedy. And waited to find out what medicine she was going to have to take, once Vee was done with her.

 _I like to fight, sure,_ Vee'd said, often enough. _It's the Warrior Gene in me. But not for no reason—MEN do that, and I ain't no man._

Up 'til then, Beecher had always assumed Vee's anti-drug policy was mainly to stave off demerits; couldn't get caught with contraband if you never had it, after all. But...no, this was something different, something she hadn't seen before, and it frankly terrified her. This was _personal,_ as if Beecher'd let her down, betrayed her in a way that was potentially unforgivable.

“I know I've disappointed y—” She began, only to fall silent again—obediently—when Vee held up an impatient finger. Correcting her, without a flicker of give in that glacial stare: “No, see, you really _didn't,_ 'cause this is pretty much what I always expected. 'Cause you're a drunk, and I knew that goin' in—drunk's just one step up from a junkie, or maybe down. And junkies, they fuck up.”

“I haven't been...”

“Seriously? You gonna contradict me right here in front of everybody, Tobit, _that_ your big plan to make things right? 'Cause that's really not gonna cut it.”

Behind Vee's broad back, the others snickered or looked away. _They hate me,_ Beecher thought, genuinely surprised. _Those fucking Nazi bitches, I've been killing myself trying to get them out, doing everything right, and they damn well RESENT me for it..._

“You're fallin' down on the job, _counsellor,_ ” Vee continued on, ferociously unaffected, either not getting or just not caring what her underlings might be up to. “Had a meeting with Said today on Jill's appeal, but you didn't show up, so _I_ have to deal with one of her little raghead posse calling me by name on the floor wanting to know where YOU are, like I'm some goddamn Muslim dog. And I'm halfway through my mail route already but I have to turn it over to Gorman here, let _her_ finish up, 'cause I need to go find my fucking wayward property—which I can't even locate myself, offhand, without asking Guard Metzger if he's seen _my_ lawyer anywhere recently.” Mimicking the too-blond, covertly A.B.-allied C.O. in question's flat Midwest tones: “'Oh, she's up top, Verena, havin' a slumber party with her new best friend.' 'Really? Well, thank you oh so very fucking much, Karl; got my back on _this_ one, obviously. _Brother._ '”

“Vee, I'm—”

“No. You need to talk to me like you know who I _am,_ for once, Beecher; have some respect, you alkie slut, or the next thing you see that Mick buddy of yours dance off of will be the _end of this fucking deck._ You understand me now, huh? Or do I have to get a little more explicit?” 

Eyes down once more, fast as if she'd been slapped: “I understand you, ma'am.”

“Good, 'cause here's the deal: I'm not ecstatic you dropped off the wagon, granted, but I don't blame you either, not entirely. You got a disease, and better yet I still got uses for you, plural. Who I _blame_ is that pusher bitch O'Reilly, for selling to your worthless ass—”

“She didn't—” A bit too loud for acceptability, still, and this time Vee really _did_ hit her: one sharp crack to the jaw, popping the hinge in a way that'd leave a bruise, but sounded worse than it felt. Beecher bit it off, then tried again, more quietly: “Rhea never charged me, ma'am. Just...gave me some of her private stash, I guess.”

At this, Robson turned, goggling. Protested, over Vee's shoulder: “For no money down? This bitch's been spreading it around, Vee, swapping pussy for tits! I _told_ you she'd be more fuckin' trouble than she's worth—”

Vee, without looking: “Shut the fuck up, Jill; Beecher knows better than that. Don't you, sweetpea?”

“I do, ma'am, yes.”

“Yeah. 'Cause you're _mine,_ right?”

Nodding, blindly: “Only yours, now and always, forever. Anybody doesn't believe that, they're free to check my chest.”

Robson snorted, but this last part finally made Vee's frown lift, however slightly; the corners of her grim mouth twitched as she gave Beecher another slap for good measure, this time on the opposite side. Warning her, as she did: “ _No_ they're fuckin' well not: say it, you whore. And more like you _mean_ it, this time.”

Into her collar, now, and barely a whisper: “No, ma'am. They're fucking well _not._ ”

Because: the fear, the fear, the _fear._ It was all around her now, making her want to run. To tear at herself with her own nails, bite in and keep on biting 'til something tore away. That voice inside her head, pointing out the parallels, like: _There you go again, thinking nobody and nothing's more important than your own selfish pleasure—good fuckin' job, Bitch-er. And what do you know, somebody else is gonna die for your mistake, aren't they? Kent Rockwell first, then Rhea, then...who knows? Who fucking knows?_

_Oz is jam-packed full of collateral victims, potentially, after all—all sorts of fresh meat, waiting to get caught in your bad-luck addict's downward spiral. Just as full as it is of offenders, competitors, fellow predators..._

Vee huffed, calming further. To herself, almost: “And you told me that Mick was smart.”

“She _is,_ ma'am. Useful, too. You can't just—”

Robson, butting in, before she could finish: “Oh yeah? Go on and tell her some more about what she _can't_ do, you fuckin' little—”

But: “Jill!” Vee barked again. “ _Shield-_ wall.” Then leant down to Beecher's level as Robson turned around like the semi-good soldier Vee'd taught her to be, attention-stiff, orienting herself to block them from any passing hacks' view, to tell Beecher: “The point is, Toby, I very definitely _can;_ point is I _will,_ you don't smarten the hell up. Look, maybe you got some misapprehension 'bout my basic character, just 'cause we made each other come a time or two. You think I got this job when somebody took some kind of fucking vote? There's a Brotherhood in every men's prison in America, but when I got _here_ all there was was a bunch'a chicks who hung around together on the quad, mainly on account of them not being black. So _I_ did this, me—made the hard calls and enforced 'em, too, 'cause... _somebody_ had to, is why. Which is why you either better give me a reason not to just kill O'Reilly as an object lesson for everybody, you very much included, or get ready to say goodbye.”

Beecher let herself feel everything for a moment more, as a bracer. Then she took a long, slow breath, and made herself feel nothing.

“Ma'am,” she began, one more time, hearing her voice crack. “I get that I screwed up. Please tell me what to do to set it right.”

Vee literally tossed her head, like the aurochs she was. Snapped back: “ _Learn_ from it, you moron. Sometimes, that's all you CAN do.”

Then turned her back, like she was going to stomp off: oh _no,_ oh no no no no. No no VERY fucking no no _NO._

( _Jesus,_ no.)

“No,” Beecher repeated, out loud, pitched so Vee swung back around, fist going automatically up and back, poised to correct her—but waiting, thank Christ. Like she almost wanted to hear what came next. So: “ _No,_ I'm not going to accept that, at all. You _have_ to let me make this right, or—”

“Beecher, for Christ's own sake. Did Jill or did Jill not just get through with telling you I don't 'have' to do shit?”

“—or...I will confess to Rhea's murder _myself,_ right to McManus's face. I'll get sent to solitary, maybe even Death Row; good luck getting any help with Jill's case from Said _then,_ not to mention my old law school fuck-buddy Keith. Or maybe I'll just kill myself, how'd you like that? Suicide by guard, steal something sharp and swallow it, step off this same _fucking_ deck right in front of you, if I can. You can't watch me forever.”

She could feel herself trembling like a dog on point, a fluffed-up cat; saw Robson's Neandertal brows try to go up, almost impressed. As Vee simply kept on staring at her for a minute, “Warrior Gene” White Power berserker thing dimming down, starting to drain out of her visibly. Maybe thinking, if Beecher had to take a guess: _You'd go on ahead do it, too, wouldn't you? Just to make ME look bad, you fucking bitch on wheels. That's..._

_...well. That's—sort of interesting too, gotta admit. When I come to consider it._

_Oh, man; pretty, crazy Toby B., best toy I ever had. You really gonna try and make me throw you away, THIS soon in the game? Not when I can still find a way I can get out of this with my juice intact, and not even have to._

Another huff, dangerously reminiscent of some cow—some _bull_ —getting ready to charge. Then Vee just nodded her head, dialled back to normal. Told Beecher: “I'm gonna have to punish you, though. You get that, right?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And it's gonna be public, too; has to be _seen._ Gonna let them—” nodding at the girls, here, making Marta Mack grin “—jump you in like I should've a long time ago, mark you up in ways you probably don't want your husband seein'...but too bad, 'cause you're still gonna do that next visit, and the next. And everybody else in Em City is gonna get to see you like that too, for exactly as long as I deem necessary.”

“I understand. It's what I deserve.”

“Got THAT right.”

Beecher kept on nodding. “I'm a fuck-up,” she reiterated, voice cracking again, almost in two. To which Vee simply snorted yet one more time, replying: “Yeah, well. Don't say it like you're proud of it.”

*** 

Buying back O'Reilly's life took at least three weeks, give or take. The rules were simple: Go see McManus, tell him what happened, take the demerits; turn O'Reilly in at the same time, get her thrown in the Hole to detox forcibly, alone and naked on a concrete floor—yeah, she was really going to love Beecher a _lot,_ by the time she came back out. Get worked over with a bar of soap in a bag, wielded by every core Aryan in turn...the pain was intense, especially when Jill went at her straight in the gut, but the bruising actually kept itself pretty much all internal aside from that black-and-purple shiner Vee gave her at the end, a stigmata anyone who cared to glance Beecher's way could probably spot from space. Then it was time to shuffle off to the infirmary, get signed up for therapy through Sister Pete, do it. Tell Giles exactly dumb she'd been _this_ time, like it was “confession or some shit,” as Vee put it.

“I'm gonna hurt you some more tonight, by the way,” Vee told her, when she finally made it back to their pod. “And it _will_ hurt, believe you me—but you're not gonna complain, are ya, huh? Just be a good girl, and take it.”

“Yes.”

“Take anything _else_ I choose to dish out, after. 'Til I tell you otherwise.”

“...yes.”

“All right. You're gonna have a lot of time to think about what not to do, Tobit, from now on—and by the way, sex isn't gonna fix this, either. So keep those bruised-up parts of yours on lock, you wanna heal up in record time.”

Beecher stood there nodding, hugging herself, barely able to stay upright by that point; cast a desperate eye at the bottom bunk, wondering if begging was really going to do the trick. “Ma'am, _please..._ may I...?” But Vee gave the go-ahead motion at last, curtly, and she found herself collapsing onto it with a whimper.

“O'Reilly...” she whispered, after maybe ten minutes' respite, eyes on the springs above. “...it's screwed, and I know it. But she really is my only friend in here, Verena, aside from you.”

Vee crossed her legs with a creak, thought about it a moment more. Then asked: “Think we're _friends,_ Beecher?”

“Aren't we?”

“Huh. Well...we'll see.”

That night she knelt by the pod wall for as long as she could keep herself from passing out, head high and face blank, showing everybody who was still awake enough to care how good she could be, how she always did what Vee told her to. “I'm...not going to be able to get up without help,” was the only thing she'd said, once the order was given; “Then you'll be there a while,” was all Vee answered, turning on her side. Sometime around three she must've finally keeled over and pissed herself, because she came to around five in Vee's lap, naked, getting her own mess washed off; after, Vee levered her up and put her to bed, brutally efficient, patting her head like a good little pet. Let her sleep until count, then made her follow around behind her throughout that day and the next, and the next—shuffling after the mail cart with her bad eye ticking and a permanent migraine to match every other ache, both knees so bruised they'd barely bend; exhibiting herself under the hot lights of Oz from Em City to Unit B and back again, a living testament to Vee's mercy, her pride and her pure-White power. Like she'd become the very object lesson Rhea's murder would have been, give or take the fact that she couldn't even look forward to ending her humiliation by dying.

Three weeks of the silent treatment, recuperating by very slow degrees, until one day Vee told her it was over—said: “Okay, enough,” right in mid-mail sort, not glancing up. But that night she held Beecher tight and let her cry every bit of it back out again, shuddering all over with Vee's hands on her shoulder-blades, cradled in those otherwise-unforgiving arms. Beecher rolling her wet face in her own tormentor's collarbone, wiping herself clean over and over against the lightning-bolt tattoo, while she listened to Vee lecture her on exactly what she should take away from her most recent descent into helplessness: _You're a strong woman, Toby; need to stop actin' like you don't know it, you don't wanna stay some spoilt little fuckin' brat forever._ Then adding, gentler, as Beecher kept on weeping: _This was to teach you, not hurt you, you get that? Just had to lean on you hard enough to break you just a bit... 'cause the plain fact is, all the crap you pull, you gotta be the single dumbest smart person I've ever met._

_I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm just...I'm so sorry._

_Ssssh, I know, I know. I know you are._

Then things dimmed, and when Toby came back to herself they were both flat on her bunk, Vee already deep in the act of accepting her apology: tongue inside her and snuffling against her clit, alternately preparing the way then breaking off to lick her own fingers 'til they were wet enough to shove inside, her other palm pressed firm over Toby's gasping mouth in the dark. As comfort cunnilingus went it was amazing and excruciating in roughly equal measure, stomach and thighs cramping up like a wave of slow-motion firecrackers; Toby lay there moaning “oh, ow, _oh,_ ow, OW,” while Vee kept on murmuring “Ssssh, ssssh,” straight into the wet, throbbing heart of her. Yet the pleasure continued building uncontrollably nevertheless, back wrenching and nipples hard as beads, 'til she finally had to turn her face into the pillow and give a single muffled, choked-off scream.

The next morning she came out to find O'Reilly waiting for her by the card-tables, at least having the grace to look slightly guilty. “So, rumor is I oughtta think I _owe_ you somethin' now, huh?” she threw at Toby, who sat down with a still-painful grunt, throwing back: “Bitch, fuck YOU.”

“Nah, I'm not into that, thanks, case you wondered. But I _am_ gonna find a way to pay you back, Beech, no matter how long it takes. For the good turn.” And here Beecher must have given her a look, one which clued O'Reilly in she was being misinterpreted, because she shook her head instead, laughing. Explaining, quickly: “No, dumb-ass—I _mean_ it, ya know? It was time to quit. Plus, you got Schillinger off my ass and back on yours where she belongs, so...yeah, it'll happen; you're on my list, from now on. Don't you ever worry about that.”

“When I least expect it, I'm sure,” Beecher muttered, making O'Reilly give another nod, a thin and secret smile. Replying, as she did: “That's the master plan.”

*** 

Back in the here and now, Toby stops her workout with a lurch, panting—feels like she's been going for hours, though she knows she can't have been. Her clothes are all stuck to her with sweat; she'll have to shower again, get herself presentable. Because: _Don't want your kids coming home to Crazy Beecher 'stead of Mommy, do ya?_ Chris's voice suddenly seems to breathe against her inner ear, making her shiver.

Giles is home by the time she steps out again, meanwhile, all fragrant in a soft white towel, trailing steam. “ _There_ 's the girl I missed,” he says, admiringly, like he can't see the scars of Oz all over her, both visible and in-; like he doesn't remember her telling him—haltingly, her wounds so fresh she could basically feel them every time her heart took a beat—how she'd gone in a drunk and still somehow managed to develop yet _another_ habit, there in hell's basement.

But hell, maybe he really doesn't, or maybe he's just good at faking it. Which would certainly be another thing they have in common, now, if so.

“I sent the kids home with my Mom,” Giles tells her, as they embrace. “So we could spend some time together.” And she just nods, as if to say: _That's thoughtful of you, honey._ “I'll order,” she offers, heading for the phone—

—which rings, at almost the same moment she goes to pick it up.

“Beecher residence,” she says, into the receiver.

There's a click. “Will you accept a collect call from Oswald Maximum Security Correctional?” A voice she vaguely recognizes as belonging to one of the prison switchboard operators asks her. “It's inmate Christine Keller, for Tobit Beecher.” And: “Nope,” Beecher blurts without thinking twice, slamming it back down again.

“Who was that?” Giles calls, from the kitchen; “No one,” she answers, picking the phone up again, placing that aforementioned order at their favourite Thai restaurant. And though she thinks she's schooled her voice perfectly, he's looking at her in what seems like an odd way when she comes back in...so she kisses him instead, fiercely, unzipping his fly.

Ten minutes later they're still fucking on the unset table, dinner forgotten—until the doorbell rings, at least.


	3. I Let The Beast In Too Soon, I Don't Know How To Live

Chris keeps on trying to call, and Toby keeps on avoiding her. It's so much easier now they're not sharing a pod, a prison, or any other sort of space—now that Toby doesn't have to smell her, to breathe her air, to worry about running into her anywhere. She settles back into normal life, instead, and gratefully: work, shopping, kids, Giles, housework, sleep. They have a cleaning service (seeing how they're “well off,” as Vee would put it, air quotes visible just in the way she drawled the words) so Toby only does the chores she absolutely wants to, and at her own leisure.

Working for Angus, meanwhile, is the exact same sort of ass-pain she'd assumed it would be, when her Dad first floated the idea. They get along functionally for a few weeks, right up until the moment when Angus suddenly blurts out, mid-argument over what loophole to poke at first in a 500-page contract he's supposedly vetting: “You just think it's so easy, being your brother,” only for Toby to snap back: “I do think it's easier having a bad example to avoid living up to than being one, yeah, that's for sure, you stupid fucking _baby._ Especially in Oz.” After that, Toby deals mainly with Angus's secretary Sirwan, who's an all right sort of dame—aside from that brief moment when she runs into Angus saying goodbye to Keith McClane by the elevator, Toby's former handler/public face for appeals and parole hearings. Considering she hasn't seen Keith since he'd slipped C.O. Lopresti a thousand to look away for fifteen minutes during their last briefing session, right before Marta Mack's appeal went to shit, the ride down is far less awkward than Toby might expect; Keith keeps shooting her soft looks, maybe thinking about the one that got away (twice), but Toby ignores him steadily until he finally stops.

Chris doesn't stop, though. Chris never stops.

Toby can still remember back when she actually used to like that about her.

*** 

Vee had indeed ended up getting parole right after the Em City riot, just like she'd originally been supposed to, but it was hard fucking work to pull that off. Sasha Ross coming in just before was what ended up doing the trick, in the end: she'd suddenly turned up in June of 1997, rocking what Beecher considered a crazily overblown Three Strikes bid—third conviction for possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) with intent to distribute equals life without the possibility of parole, no ifs, ands or buts. Vee agreed yet seemed happy enough to see her nonetheless, not to mention unsurprised.

“Kind of amazed you managed to stay out _this_ long,” was all she said, to which Ross just shrugged, tossing her long, prematurely-grey hair. She was twice as tall as Beecher and dressed like a weird cross between Stevie Nicks and David Lee Roth, if either of them stank to high heaven. The stench crept up on you, eventually becoming bad enough that Vee suddenly snapped during one interminable card-game, as Ross threw down her hand: “Jesus Christ, Sash, take a fuckin' whore's bath at least! You're throwin' me off my game.”

Ross grinned and sat back, crossing her legs at such a shameless angle the funk in question somehow got worse: holy shit, did she ever wear panties? “Callin' me a whore? That's cold, sister.”

Vee winced. “Oh yeah, you're right, of course—that would be an insult to actual whores, who at least have professional standards. Just...you know what? You win, literally; I will cash out and _pay_ you to go take a shower, long's you do it right the fuck now.”

“How much?”

“Name your price,” Vee replied, rolling her eyes.

“Mmmm...let's say fifty in my account, plus you send your _lawyer_ here in to scrub my back.”

“Fuck you, bitch. 'Sides, you don't want her—she bites.”

With lascivious emphasis: “So I have _heard._ Aw, but I get it, Big Vee: no sharin', right? Always did have that fucked-up monogamy fetish even before ol' Mr Schillin-jah got a hold of ya, more's the fuckin' pity.”

“It's Schillin _Ger._ ” 

“Yeah, yeah. Big bills only, baby.”

At which point she strutted away, leaving Beecher to ask, amazed: “What the hell _is_ that smell, anyhow?”

Vee snorted. “Pussy and weed, maybe. Also she has this thing about baths, like it's a fuckin' phobia...probably some childhood thing, not that I ever cared to ask. Or she just likes pissin' people off.”

“Well, I could see that. Have to say, though, I'm a little insulted that this is who you supposedly think I'm like.”

“Huh, only in bed...though you do smell better, that's for damn sure. C'mere.”

Ostensibly, the riot started over a game of checkers—two women Beecher'd never noticed before and never would again, going at each other with shanks over who kinged who—but really, it'd been building for months already: Khadija Said's Muslims' rise to prominence and the accompanying racial tensions plus Governor Devil's general budgetary slashing, cutting conjugals, banning smoking. Robson winning her appeal definitely hadn't helped, except around Aryan central; the hacks had hated it universally, pressing on Warden Glynn to press on McManus to press on Beecher, who'd responded by pointing out that A) nothing she was doing for Vee was illegal and B) all ideological grossness set entirely aside, there were some genuine injustices being rectified here, which was more than McManus was managing to do on a daily basis.

“Of course I don't agree with Vee's prejudices, or her late husband's,” she told him, “but the fact is, most of her original case was spill-over from those beliefs slopping onto a crime that should've been assessed on the basis of her previous record. Take away the Nazi shit and see how it looks then: a grieving widow and single mother with a mainly sealed juvenile record, trying to save her kids from the local pusher by any means necessary...”

“...ie, busting his head in with a tire iron,” McManus completed the thought for her, to which Beecher shrugged. Replying: “Well, it wouldn't have been _my_ first impulse—back before last year, anyhow—or yours, probably. But we're neither of us mainly-uneducated multiple-time recidivists with extremely unresolved anger issues, are we?”

“Not that I know of. Then again, you did go to Harvard.”

“Why yes, I did; go Crimson. That's just how the system works, though, McManus, if it works at all. How we have to agreed to pretend it works, anyhow, or risk having it stop working entirely.”

“I know!”

“Sure, okay. And yet you don't like it, obviously.”

McManus sighed. “I like it better when people like Jill Robson and Vee Schillinger don't go free, but I get that that's the risk. I went to law school, Beecher, same as you—yes, that's right, I _did._ I just chose not to practice.”

“And instead, you went into...this.”

“My Dad was a guard at Attica.”

Beecher nodded, slightly. Thinking (though not saying): _Ah, uh huh. Not sure what that has to say for YOUR potential penal management skills, exactly, but I guess I understand the impulse._

Next on the list of people trying to persuade Beecher that moral compromise in the service of self-preservation was innately...well, _selfish_...was, of course, Sister Pete. “Tobit,” the nun-psychiatrist began, halfway through the next day, as Toby looked up from her endless file-inputting and -updating duties, “you know I've essentially agreed not to offer any sort of opinion about your...arrangement with Vee Schillinger, thus far...”

“For which I'm duly grateful, thank you.”

“You're welcome, No, we talk a lot about guilt and anger and grief, along with how all of those fold into your addiction issues, and I think we've done some fine work together on those problems, thus far.” Toby nodded. “But in this case, I really do have to agree with Tim McManus, along with everyone else: Whatever Vee does once she's back out in the world, I can't think it'll be something you want your name associated with.”

It would've been easy to just toss off something flip in return, Toby knew, but she liked—respected—Sister Pete far too much not to think over her next words as much as she could before replying, to give them (and her) the consideration they deserved. So: “Maybe not,” she admitted, at last. “Thing is, though, my name's always going to _be_ associated with hers from now on, no matter what, at least in here. It's like we're married, or something. And she made me a promise so I made her a promise, and...she's kept up her end of the deal. So now it's time for me to do the same.”

Sister Pete sighed. “Say you _hadn't_ made this devil's bargain of yours,” she suggested. “What's the worst that could have happened?”

Toby goggled at her slightly, before replying: “Well, I might be _dead_ by now, that's one thing; raped for sure, maybe a bunch of times. And the only reason I'm not, in either case? Is Vee.”

“Mmmm. But let's be honest, Toby: What Vee expects from you, in exchange for her protection—that's really just another kind of rape.”

“Oh, it's different, Sister. Believe me.”

Those bird-like little black eyes never wavered, though. “Can you tell me why?” Sister Pete asked—and for some reason, that in itself was enough to bring on the wave, strong as ever: Beecher found herself biting down, fighting to bring her pulse back within normal range, to resist her own sheer animal impulse to rage and scream against the sudden spike of _fear fear fear, run or fight, slash and burn._ Answering, finally, through gritted teeth: “Because I said _yes,_ that's how—and in here, saying yes's the only power I have left. Because whatever Vee requires of me, no matter how different it might be from what I'm used to, I make myself _enjoy_ it.”

Sister Pete nodded. “Like you 'made' yourself enjoy getting drunk, maybe,” she pointed out, gently. “Or...said 'yes' when your friends asked if you were okay to drive yourself home, even when you knew better.” To which Beecher simply nodded back, jaw set, allowing herself a mere grim twist of a smile. Replying, as she did: “The day I killed Kent Rockwell? Well, you got me, Sister; I've made myself enjoy a lot of stupid shit over the years, as we both know. That's kind of why I'm here.”

She knew exactly what Pete was really getting at, of course: the central question of Oz, at least from an inmate's perspective—ie, what sort of genuine consent could anybody possibly give in here, to anything? Which was an interesting question indeed, from almost every angle.

Gussie Hill had called Oz part of the _penis_ system often enough, when she was off on one of her monologizing tears: according to her, it was all about how long, how hard, who was giving it to who when, where and why. Which Beecher could certainly get behind given her current “job,” as well as parsing the metaphor out just that little bit further; as a (former) lawyer, she knew exactly how the word broke down, after all. How “penal” meant inflicted from the outside, as in penance, penitential, the way Oz used to be a Penitentiary—a place they put you so you'd be forced to think about all the bad stuff you'd done, all the harm you'd inflicted on others, along with yourself.

But then again, maybe it really WAS all just about a big bunch of dicks holding you down, constantly making you aware that you were nothing like them, from your biology on up. Sentenced to life, no matter your actual crime, let alone the time you were supposed to serve for it—because even on the outside you still wouldn't be truly free so long as there was an authority figure around to scope the big red C for Corrections on your file, that not-so-secret Scarlet Letter which made sure those around you would never see you as a regular citizen again, as opposed to a badly-disguised con somehow trying to put on over on the straight world simply by existing.

In Oz, the rot started with Glynn—a good man in a bad job or just another fucking hack, depending on the day—and spread downwards, infecting every employee, 'till even the most otherwise moral of them would eventually bend or enforce the rules to their own advantage. For example, to cite only one instance: Sexual activity was supposedly banned in Em City, not that the glass walls made it especially easy to hide; Beecher'd seen the hacks tote other women away plenty of times for visible misbehaviour, especially members of the cellblock's small but vocal Dyke contingent, cross-dressing studs like Adebisi or less categorizable prisoners like Chiara Pancamo, whose hard time strategy appeared to revolve around pumping so much iron it looked like she'd been mainlining testosterone.

Yet she could also count the number of times she and Vee had been cautioned on one hand, let alone cited; had to assume most of the hacks just liked to watch, basically, the same way too many of them enjoyed Rhea O'Reilly's famous blowjobs to bother registering complaints about her selling drugs out of the infirmary or favors out of her pod, even when those two activities got a bit too public to ignore. Not to mention how no one had ever put up much of a fuss over Marisol Alvarez crying and masturbating all night for everybody to see, with the hacks only intervening after she started to cut up her own face in the wake of news that her dead baby's father didn't want to see her anymore.

From a purely legal standpoint, almost nothing Beecher or her fellow prisoners did while incarcerated could be called consensual per se, since none of them had _consented_ to being there in the first place. The system was so slanted in their disfavour that any sexual interaction they had with a prison employee was considered rape by default, but was that ever followed up on? Please. The hack got a union rep and paid leave, while his victim got the Hole and a bad reputation; snitches got stitches, after all, no matter who it was snitching about what.

(Jill Robson'd felt the full brunt of the system too, though it wasn't as if Beecher would have ever reminded McManus of this, even in the service of making herself feel better for helping the woman escape justice—apparently, she'd first caught Vee's eye after she'd literally fallen down in front of her in the mess hall line and started bleeding to death from what she later learned was a traumatic miscarriage, aggravated by getting raped by hacks yet again when she didn't even know she was already pregnant from her first few rapes.

 _Pimped out since who knows when by that asshole pedo she called Dad, and they're all so surprised she becomes a whore,_ Vee'd growled, seemingly genuinely offended, _let alone turns 'round and kills some nigger bitch tries to step on her patch, plus the bastard who was gonna swap Jill out for her. That's how she was, when I found her—a woman who'd rather put out than fight, who just snapped, walked around in a daze covered in blood 'til the cops picked her up. But look at her now, huh? A warrior, a soldier; Jill'd do anything for me, for the Cause. Most people would've tried to fill her head up with Jesus, forgive and forget, all that happy fairytale bullshit; I gave her back HERSELF, the purest, truest version. Just like Arlen did for me._ )

Which kind of did beg the question: was what Toby'd become in Oz the truest version of _her_? She thought about Keith for a minute, her oh-so-helpful fellow appeals case-worker, who she'd first hooked up with back in law school, in all senses of the term—done their share of dinner-and-a-movies, partied together, worn out the mattress on his frat-house resident's bed; Toby'd probably been the drunker of the two by far, granted, but she remembered being into it. Keith had been pretty easy to like in general, on paper—nice guy, good suits, kept his average up. At one point he'd started thinking they'd get married, however, so she'd taken a sharp turn in the opposite direction, only to run right into Giles's arms. So it'd been mordantly funny to re-encounter Keith here, exactly when and where she needed him most...and if she'd later “had” to let him screw her in the contact visits room a few times in order to get his mind back on the task at hand, then whatever; it wasn't exactly a chore. Just her paying him back for volunteering all those otherwise-billable hours, the only way she had available to her.

Vee didn't like it much, but she didn't complain about it, either; nothing if not practical, the widow Schillinger—she'd use Beecher to settle the Sisterhood's debts similarly in a hot minute, if she thought she needed to. And besides, she knew damn well Toby'd be coming back “home” with her at the end of every day, right up until the day Vee'd finally leave Em City for good...soon, now, by Keith's reckoning; very much so. All _too_ soon, for Toby's tastes.

Still wearing that same bitter not-grin, probably, so she wasn't too surprised when she resurfaced from her thoughts to find Sister Pete looking at her with a clear mix of both sympathy and annoyance, slanted maybe sixty-forty on the latter side. “Look, Sister,” Toby said, at last, “fact is, Vee was always going to get released, with or without my help. And while she's a spectacularly awful human being in some ways, at least she's never lied to me about it; I knew what I was walking into, mostly—and when I didn't, I learned. She's been as good to me as she can be. So at this point, since we've already established how I set myself up to become a whore just by getting myself thrown in here in the first place, I guess we really _are_ just haggling about the price.”

 _Cui bono, counsellor?_ She heard Vee's voice ask, at the same time, from the back of her mind. _That'd be you, benefitting from my rep, my mentorship, all my hard work—this thing I built with my own two hands, my sweat and other people's blood. And you not even a real Aryan! Now...say THANKS, sweetpea._

(Oh, and: _Thank you very much, ma'am, For everything._ )

Sister Pete sighed again. “Tobit,” she said, “have you ever wondered why I like you so much?”

“On occasion, yeah.”

“Well, part of it's that I enjoy how your mind works—you're smart, insightful, empathic; you can be funny.” Beecher cocked a brow at her, like: CAN be? “You love your family enough to miss them, to feel bad for how your actions reflect on them, and you're capable of so much, for all you claim everything you do comes out of self-interest: what can you possibly gain from being friends with Bertha Rebadow, for example, beyond friendship itself?” Now it was Toby's turn to sigh, shrugging uncomfortably, as the nun continued: “It's just too bad that whenever you turn that mind on yourself, you end up trying to convince yourself you not only have no choice but to do what you're already doing, but that you never _did_ have a choice. And that's simply not true, Tobit—everything we do is a choice, _our_ choice, even choosing not to choose at all. That's what Free Will means.”

It was an itchy feeling to be so intimately seen, so known; Beecher really should've been braced for it, she guessed, considering where she worked. But Sister Pete traded on looking harmless—and besides, she was _right,_ goddamnit. In that Toby had already spent most of her life thinking around her problems instead of solving them, looking for some thread she could pull on and hoping the whole thing would just unravel. Tug hard and find the get-out clause, specious “proof” she was somehow right all along to've done what she'd done, or at least that it'd been inevitable, like fate.

“Maybe God shouldn't've been so quick to build that shit into us, then,” was the only thing she could think to mutter in return, eventually. To which Sister Pete just shook her head, reminding her: “Ah, but He _didn't,_ did He? Like Original Sin, Free Will was a gift we gave ourselves.”

*** 

_This is Oz, bitches,_ Vee liked to say, during her lectures; _we're all trapped, but only if we wanna be—can't go back, just forward. And there's no do-overs, either, so you need to learn to live with what you did—who you ARE—or stop livin'._ To which Beecher sometimes used to think, ungenerously, from her post on the floor, flipping through yet another appeal and pretending to enjoy listening: _'Get busy living or get busy dying,' in other words? Yeah, I saw that movie too._

All of which came to a palpable head during the riot, brief spasm of violence though it turned out to be. The final camel's back-breaking straw turned out to be Devlin's dumbest political move yet, considering what Glynn ended up paying for attempting to enforce it: a prison-wide ban on hijabs.

“Can they even DO that?” Beecher asked Said (formerly Daughter Truman, doctor of both Law and Comparative Religious Philosophy, who'd once been held up by Beecher's own criminal law professors as a shining example of someone too fucking smart for her own good, or anybody else's). To which Said, already fuming, had simply growled back: “You might think not, considering the person attempting to smuggle in drugs under her headscarf had absolutely nothing to do with Oz's Muslim population, inside Em City or otherwise, as has already been proven beyond a doubt. But apparently, in this particular pit of institutionalized corruption, you'd be wrong.”

Rhetoric aside, Said was usually the voice of reason in these situations, but the idea of having to show her hair to a bunch of infidels was obviously where she drew the line—so at the very same moment when it looked like Zahira Arif and Hamida Khan were going to get themselves thrown in Ad Seg for refusing to comply, it was Said who took advantage of the checkers game brawl's distraction, grabbing a guard's gun right out of its holster and cold-cocking him with it across the back of the head. (Later it was rumored she'd been passed the gun by a hero-worshipping rookie, Glynn's own godson, but Beecher had no way of knowing whether or not that was true.) Craziness erupted in every direction, with Adebisi, Wangler, O'Reilly, Alvarez and the Aryans taking immediate advantage, forcing Beecher to drag Vee off before she could engage, which wasn't easy; she'd never seen anybody so pissed off to miss out on a potential beat-down. “You need to stay OUT of this,” Beecher told her, shoving her into their pod, “or kiss parole goodbye, you get me? And delegate somebody else to run things for the duration, too.”

“The shit? Why'd I wanna do that, exactly?”

“Because conspiracy says you're liable for anything Mack and the rest do from now on, including 'during commission of a felony'-level prosecution, so long as you're their acknowledged leader.”

Vee huffed, and swore again: “ _Fuck!_ All right, go get Sash.”

“She's not gonna do anything I tell her—”

“Will if it comes from _me,_ she knows what's good for her. Now fetch.”

It worked, of course; once she found out she'd been tapped to take Vee's slot, however temporarily, Sasha Ross both came willingly and stepped up, with a vengeance. Within five hours, she was repping Bikers and Aryans alike at Said's side, helping the Em City coalition rough out their (fairly reasonable) demands. Vee lent her Beecher to take notes and draft the letter, watching longingly from their pod while humped up on her bunk like a sulky mama bear, as Alvarez's chicas took turns jumping in the hostage hacks they liked least and Ross controlled the gate. For a while, it seemed like Glynn would actually meet them halfway, especially once McManus swapped himself for half the hostages—but Devlin, naturally enough, had other plans. So things collapsed long before midnight, when SORT came in backed up by the National Guard; by the time the tear-gas and bullets started flying, Beecher and Vee were under the bed with water-soaked sheets wrapped around their faces, hands already up in anticipation of getting dragged out to join the survivors kneeling on the quad.

“Don't resist,” Vee told her, muffled, “not even if they kick you in the cunt.” “Wasn't planning on it,” Beecher shot back, every inch of her clenched in anticipation. Then found herself suddenly caught up in a full-body hug, face pressed hard into Vee's breast-bone, feeling that fierce heart hammer under her cheek.

When the air cleared (literally), Sasha Ross was counted amongst the dead, McManus amongst the wounded—she'd gotten the gun away from Said after O'Reilly suggested they “share” it in rotation, as a trust exercise, and almost immediately betrayed that trust by shooting Em City's resident Wizard in the chest. Somebody had then followed that up by shooting Ross, three times: head, heart, gut. It struck Beecher as overkill of a very specific sort, the kind with a lot of passion behind it, so she started asking around about what Ross might've been up to extracurricularly just before the riot broke out, not to mention with who. Since O'Reilly and Said were still in the Hole and the rest of them had been temporarily housed in Gen Pop, she turned to Rebadow, Em City's oddest yet most reliable source of information; claimed to get it straight from the Word of God, but Beecher thought it was far more likely to be a winning combination of Oldest Living Prisoner in Oz Tells All versus Nobody Notices Me 'Cause I'm Not Considered Fuckable Anymore (And They Also Think I'm Crazy).

“Oh, Ross shot McManus because of Guard Whittlesey,” Rebadow told her, virtually unprompted, as they sat in the cafeteria together. “She had a side deal going with Whittlesey, moving marijuana into Oz; Whittlesey's ex-husband used to be in the same biker gang Ross ran with, and Ross knew Whittlesey probably hadn't told McManus about that part of her past, so she was able to blackmail her into it. But McManus confronted Whittlesey and she told him everything, so he was going to cover it up for her as long as Whittlesey agreed to flip on Ross to save her job, and then Ross'd end up out in Unit B, without the rest of the Bikers to back her up. But Whittlesey also took advantage of the riot to shoot _Ross_ and get away with it, so Ross could never flip on _her,_ or McManus, either. She really does love him, you know.”

“That sounds about right...wait, though; Whittlesey had a gun too? She was a hostage.”

Rebadow shook her head. “She had _Ross_ 's gun, by then—Said's, I mean. Ross slipped and fell when the gate blew, lost it in the smoke, kicked it to Whittlesey without knowing. And Whittlesey trained on the SORT team, so she knows their commander; he covered up for her.” A beat. “Besides which, nobody ever liked Ross enough to care about who might have really killed her, especially not if it puts an otherwise good C.O. in jail.”

But: _Vee did,_ Beecher thought. And a plan began to form.

*** 

This, it ensued, was essentially how Tim McManus ended up giving _glowingly_ positive character testimony at Vee Schillinger's parole hearing. Beecher was well aware that if she put Devlin's investigator Alvah Case onto the whole McManus/Whittlesey/Ross menage the only thing that'd probably result was Whittlesey getting fired and McManus being removed as Em City's administrator, which wouldn't do anything for anybody, in the long run—but really, what other choice did she have? If Whittlesey'd _wanted_ to get away with her (hopefully sole) foray into murder scot free, she really should've done it in a way somebody who claimed to talk to God couldn't crack without breaking a sweat, or some random disbarred lawyer couldn't figure out how legally prove within three days of hearing about it, tops.

Then again, she probably hadn't exactly been thinking straight at the time, any more than the rest of them had.

 _Poor impulse control, huh, Diane?_ Beecher hadn't quite been able to stop herself from musing, as she walked into McManus's office with Keith McClane, ready to bring the kind of pressure to bear she'd previously thought was as long gone an option as that court-friendly little rack of vintage Hermes scarves her mother had once given her—remembering that first day and Whittlesey's “welcoming speech,” plus the coldly dismissive eye she'd cut them all while delivering it. _'Cause crime makes you stupid, and if we had any self-control, we wouldn't be in here, in the first place...but better us than you, girlfriend, am I right?_

_Now let's see what your boyfriend's prepared to do, exactly, to make sure things STAY that way._

*** 

Four hours later, Vee had her ruling—parole granted, free to go, though not immediately; too late in the afternoon for processing, so she and Beecher got one more night together, at least. They spent a good deal of it in the usual ways, but eventually that ran out and they just lay there spooning, Vee subdividing Toby's hair again and again, turning one braid into two, then four, then eight, then ten. While Toby tried her best not to let her growing terror show, only to fail at last; just hugged herself, knees tucking up into fetal position and shoulders heaving until Vee's restless hands finally stilled, became two warm palm-prints outlining both shoulder-blades at once. 'Til Vee finally said, into the nape of her neck: “Listen, Toby...I know you're scared, okay? But you don't have to be. I made provisions.”

Beecher sniffed, thinly. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Means I found a woman's gonna take you on for me, make sure you live to see your _own_ parole. Her name's Chris Keller—heard she was comin' in through the grapevine, so I reached out, and she's amenable. I know her from Lardner; she owes me, like I owe you...well, more like you owe _me,_ but you get the drift.”

“ _I_ don't know her!”

“Well, you will. She's reliable, mostly—a little fucked up, sure, but who isn't? Think I know you well enough by now to to know you'll enjoy what's wrong with _her_ a lot more'n you would what's wrong with Mack, or the rest of 'em.”

“Your _kids,_ you mean? I'm not some fucking piece of furniture you give away when you're done with it, Verena!”

One last cuff across the back of her head, sharp as ever. “ _Shush,_ brat—think I'm _done_ with you, just 'cause I'm gonna be gone? Not likely. And no goin' off the top deck or what have you either, just 'cause you think you know better 'bout what's gonna happen next: I _order_ you to keep yourself alive, you get me, Beecher? No fuckin' back-talk! Stay alive, come home, be a mother to those kids, have more. Now say you understand, or I'll do you so hard you can't walk.”

Another sniff, longer this time, and Beecher felt herself settling again—snark rising as the fear subsided, high enough for her to shoot back: “Yeah? I've had two kids, same as you. You know I can take it.”

Vee huffed, then chuckled, hugging her closer; Beecher could almost feel her smiling, wide as a shark. Saying, with proprietary approval, as she did: “Uh huh, 'course I do. 'Cause...that's my girl.”

( _Mine forever, inside and out—check your tit if you're ever tempted to forget it, or flash it at whoever else might be. You know the drill, cupcake._ )

Which was pretty damn good advice, as Beecher was already well aware. Though she still thought it wasn't going to work on everybody, a thesis that would soon turn out to be tested far more quickly—and violently—than either of them had been counting on.

 _Came in here thinking whatever happened to me, I probably deserved it,_ Beecher thought, as Vee snuggled against her, breath slowing. _And you've benefitted from that, for sure; we both have. The longer I'm here, though, the less I'm starting to feel like that's true...which should prove interesting, the next time somebody tries to knock me on my knees._

As Vee would've said, though, had Beecher ever dared to voice this last part out loud: _It's good to have self-esteem, Toby, even when you're ridin' bitch. But maybe not TOO much._

*** 

Chris used to say Vee liked “the power part” of sex, and she certainly did—but then again, _most_ people do, Beecher very definitely included. On some level, even before Oz, she's always known what she really wants is for somebody to hold her down and hurt her, at least until she tells them not to anymore. No point in even asking Giles to play that particular game; he's way too nice, and thank God for that. That's what people like Vee...and Chris...are for.

 _You felt like that before, too?_ Chris asked her after she first voiced the above, lying in the afterglow. And: _I did,_ Beecher admitted, a weird jolt of crazy freedom suddenly lighting her up all over. _All the time, and for no good reason. Like I was guilty from birth, long before I ever did anything worth going to jail over._ To which Chris simply grinned and kissed her hard, only breaking away when Beecher started to lose her breath, leaving her red and gasping. Purring: _Human fuckin' condition, baby—ask Sister Pete, you don't believe me. That's what the Church is FOR._

Chris Keller, who purported to be totally fine playing along with other people's fetishes, if only to mask the fact that her own was for tricking people into loving her; not that she really seemed to believe it was possible, but it must've given her an amazing high to get the other person to want to meet her halfway, no matter what the circumstances. Like her and Beecher, shoved headlong into this strange parody of an arranged marriage by Vee's phantom hands like a kid smushing two Barbies together, ordering them: _Now kiss._ And since the physical intimacy had been so immediate—tit for tat, stress relief/back-up for sex on demand anytime anywhere, a system Beecher already understood and accepted, whether or not she actually agreed with it—the ensuing seduction had become entirely about emotional connection, trust, partnership in entirely other arenas: Chris spinning out True Tales of Griftership in the dark, showing Beecher her own darkest secrets one anecdote at a time, in hopes that Beecher might one day do the same.

 _Should see me in heels and a wig sometime, Beech,_ she'd murmur, deft hands busy below both their waists, _my tats covered up, nice makeup job, a little Victoria's Secret action—seriously, 's like I'm a whole 'nother person. Yeah, when I'm on my game I can get your PIN number on the first date, get you to transfer twenty thou into my account, make you think I got a sick mother, make you think I love you like you love ME; don't even have to fuck you to do it, but I might, I like the way you're put together enough to make it worth my while. And then...I'm gone._

And Beecher making herself answer, even through building ecstasy—breathless, mouth dry, bottom lip caught between her teeth: _Career liar, in other words; thanks for the warning. Good to know, uh...considering._

 _Oh, always._ Adding, sweetly, after a beat: _Bet you'd know a little somethin' 'bout THAT already, though, wouldn't ya? LAWYER._

It's almost a week after Chris's latest call when Beecher exits her family's firm's building to find FBI Agent Taylor waiting for her on the street outside, tall and grim as ever. “Need a lift home?” he asks her. “Since I know you're not allowed to drive anymore, I mean.” And: “No thanks,” she replies, coolly. “I already called a cab.”

“Uncle Sam will be happy to reimburse you.”

_Oh, well. That makes it all okay, then._

“My sources tell me Christine Keller's been calling you,” he says, moments later, turning onto the freeway.

“That's true,” Beecher allows. “They tell you I've been hanging up on her?”

“No, they didn't tell me that. Why?”

“That'd be best filed under 'None of your business,' I think.”

“We _could_ continue this little chat downtown, Mrs Beecher. Under slightly more official circumstances.”

Beecher sighs. “It's Ms., and no doubt. Okay, then how about this? Because I'm _out,_ back with my husband, my kids. Because there's no place for Chris in my life now, and she knows it.”

“Yet you still won't testify against her.”

“Chris was good to me. I don't want her dead.” Off Taylor's narrow glance: “Besides which, she never _told_ me anything about those cases you want me to shop her for in the first place, whether you believe that or not; not sure why you'd think she would, just because we were sleeping together. She's a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.”

“I heard she tried to lose you your parole.”

“That's true too.” A pause, plus the very slightest hint of a secret smile: “ _Didn't,_ though, after all that. Did she.”

Now it's Taylor's turn to sigh, pulling into Beecher's driveway; Beecher waits for him to open the door for her but he just sits there, so she does it herself. “You're some piece of work, Ms. Beecher,” is all he says, finally, to which she simply shrugs. “So I've been told,” she replies, and leaves him there.

Inside, Gary, Holly and Giles are waiting, pizza on the table. “We got your favourite, Mommy,” Holly says, proudly. “I ordered.”

“That's very mature of you, honey. How was school?”

“Stupid. We just do the same stuff every day, and nothing ever changes. It's so borrrrring.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Toby agrees. “Work was the same, pretty much.”

Holly's snub nose wrinkles in a creepily familiar way, one Toby recognizes from the Oz shower room's mirror. “I thought things got different when you grew up.”

“Some things do, others...” But Giles is making a gesture at her under the table, so she winds that thought up. Brightly: “...anyhow, let's talk about that later. Did you guys get pop?”

“Ginger ale for you. Gary says that's the one you like best.”

 _Mmm, 'specially when it comes with a slug of rye inside,_ Toby thinks. “He's right,” she says, smiling at Gary, who smiles back. “Let's eat!”

Something must be off with the spicy Italian meatballs, however, because half an hour later she's hunched over the toilet wiping bile from her mouth, Giles standing by looking worried; he hands her a wet, warm cloth to clean her face and hands with afterwards, like some kind of high-class bathroom attendant. “You okay, Tobe?”

“Yeah, I think...I don't know. That's really weird.”

From behind them comes Gary's voice, through the shut bathroom door, his tone hovering somewhere between trying not to be scared and trying to be helpful: “Joelly's Mom started throwing up for no reason last year, and it was kind of scary. Then she went to the doctor, and found out Joelly was getting a little brother.”

Giles looks at Toby, eyebrows raising; Toby claps a hand to her stomach, realizing it's been a good month and a half since that night with the Thai food. “Oh shit,” she blurts out, before she can stop herself, only to hear Holly gasp, then scold: “You shouldn't say that _word,_ Mommy!”

 _Fuck I shouldn't,_ Toby thinks, Oz-anger flaring up over her like a swarm of bees, stinging her everywhere it can reach. Then heaves again, doubles up once more, and pukes up the rest of her dinner.


	4. Without My Hand On His Neck, I Fight Him Always And Still

Turns out, Dr Elizabeth Olivet—Beecher's new psychiatrist—knows Sister Pete. Toby wonders why she's not more surprised.

“Did your GP confirm it?” Olivet asks; Toby nods. Delicately: “You don't seem exactly...enthused at the prospect.”

“Oh, I don't have to be. Giles, the kids and my parents are 'enthused' enough about 'the prospect' for all of us.”

“I'm sure. But it's your body, Tobit.”

 _Is it?_ Toby wonders, but doesn't say; she looks aside, studying the floor. “Back in Oz, a friend used to tell me I could probably still have three more kids at the very least, I just tried hard enough,” she replies, finally.

“Christine Keller?”

“No, not her. Chris isn't the maternal type, exactly.”

“So Verena Schillinger, then.”

“Yeah, that's right. Vee's all about replacing the race, which is why if you're a white woman with a working uterus, she tends to proselytize.” A beat. “Actually, another friend of mine had just found out she was pregnant, around the time I left. I worry about her, sometimes.”

Olivet nods. “And that'd be Rhea O'Reilly, yes?”

“Wow, you've just got _all_ the news, don't you? Sister Pete really keeps you informed.”

“Does that idea bother you?”

“Not as much as it would've, once upon a time—I'm pretty used to people keeping tabs on me, at this point. No point in resenting what you can't change.”

“Some might disagree.”

Beecher sighs. “Look, doc, I'm not sure what you want me to say; I gave up my right to feel resentful back when I got hammered and drove over somebody, basically. So no, I'm not gonna try and contest this—I figure I owe them all for supporting me when thousands wouldn't've, and bringing a third child into the world now I'm out at least gives him or her a chance at a fairly good start: stability, infrastructure, love. They'll have Giles, and Gary, and Holly...”

“And _you._ This child will have you too, Tobit.”

“...of course. Of course they will.”

Olivet gives her the old diagnostic up and down, eyes soft yet sharp, probing for holes. But Toby makes sure to keep her game face on: pleasantly blank, just open enough to bounce off of. No point in being offensive, especially not when Olivet could get a call from her P.O. anytime, or make one _to_ him. No point in giving them anything to talk about if that happens, beyond the usual range of no, Beecher's not drinking; no, Beecher didn't get fired. And hey, what do you know—surprise baby! Can't get much more normal than that, if you tried.

“I notice you call them your friends,” Olivet says, at last. “Is that really how you think of these women?”

Toby starts to shrug, then catches herself, turning the movement into a sort of semi-apologetic twitch. “Well, we were all important to each other, in there. I mean...what else would I call them?”

“You and Verena Schillinger also shared a sexual relationship, though, didn't you? It's in your file. And with Christine Keller, the intimacy seems to have gone even further...lovers, that's how most of the people from Oz I've spoken to have described you.”

This time Toby really does snort. “Lovers connotes _love,_ doc. I'm not sure that was ever what Chris and I had, given how things ended up between us.”

“What, then?”

“Um...affinity, maybe. Partnership. We enjoyed each other, most of the time. It was a strictly utilitarian relationship when we started, just like with me and Vee—” She pauses. “You're right, though, things _did_ change. Not as much as Chris might've wanted them to, in the end, but...they changed.”

Olivet: “And how do you think she wanted them to change?”

“You'd have to ask her about that, I guess.”

“You seem depressed, Tobit.”

“I'm not.”

“Are you sure?”

Toby feels that flare again, and tamps it down, hard. “Pretty sure, yeah,” she manages, after a moment. “In that I've actually _been_ depressed, clinically; that's in my file as well, you want to take a look. So I think I'd probably be able to recognize if I was depressed again, just like I hope you'd trust me not to lie about it. Thanks for asking, though.”

And: _Too much,_ she thinks, even as she's saying it. _Too MUCH, Bitch-er, goddamn. Why do you always have to go too far?_ Olivet doesn't take the bait, however. Just sits there looking at her for a moment, before suggesting: “'Depression is anger turned inward'; you've heard the phrase before, I'm sure.” Toby nods. “Well, there's an analogue to that, one you don't hear quite as much, yet equally useful: anger is fear, turned outward. Would you agree, or disagree?”

“...agree.”

“You seem angry as well, Tobit, that's why I mention it. Are you?”

At this, Toby does smile, if only slightly. “Almost always, doc,” she admits. “But then again, I'm sort of used to it, by now.”

*** 

_Look after people, they'll look after you,_ Vee liked to say; _works pretty well with you 'n' me, right?_ To which Beecher would almost always simply nod, unprotesting, not bothering to point out: _But maybe we're just a bit more reasonable than everybody else, comparatively...don't suppose you've ever considered that option, ma'am._

So it wasn't as big a surprise as it otherwise might have been, therefore, when things started collapsing between Beecher and the rest of Vee's click almost immediately, pretty much right from the moment Beecher delivered Vee's last message to Marta Mack. “Vee says Mack has top spot, going forward,” she informed them, only to hear Mack snap back: “Think I need _you_ to tell me that, bitch?”

 _Well, THAT was fast._ But for once, Beecher's first reaction wasn't to back down, genuflect desperately into beta-girl submission display to ward off another soap-bag beating; instead, she just turned on her heel, throwing back: “I think she told me to tell you, so I did; errand run, we're done here. Enjoy getting Sieg Heiled, or whatever it is you do all day.”

Mack frowned, annoyed by Beecher's lack of (visible) fear. Demanding: “Where you think _you_ 're goin'?”

“Home. McManus put Gussie Hill in with me, probably temporarily; I have to help her move her stuff over from Poet Jackson's.”

“ _That_ jig on wheels? You're Aryan meat, not some fake-Gangsta party favor. Tell McManus you're movin' in with me.”

Beecher paused, felt something shift inside her at the thought, terror flipping to rage like somebody'd turned a phantom knob. That same fear/anger spike as ever, lifting her hair and setting the roots of her teeth to ache, but instead of repressing it she let it all spill out, instead—turned back with her shoulders squaring and hands knitting into claws to show Mack the choppers that'd half-severed one bitch's nipple, only to realize that when she bothered to stand up straight for once, Mack was actually too short to even look her in the eye. The resultant high was better than anything Beecher'd had thus far, especially when she saw Gorman and Bolt-chick give an automatic half-step back. “That's... _not_ happening,” she told Mack, ferociously calm.

Mack laughed, too stupidly mean to be anything but oblivious in the face of Beecher's sudden transformation. “Oh yeah? Think you're too good to suck anybody's pussy but Vee's, that it?” Off Beecher's ungiving stare: “'Kay, fine, then—try it on your own a while, Bitch-ball; see how far ya get without a hundred different daddies turnin' your hoity-toity ass out. 'Bout how long you think you're gonna last in here, exactly, without the Sisterhood backin' you up?”

“Without _Vee,_ you mean?” Beecher snapped back. “Guess we'll just have to see. Now fuck right off, you midget fucking Ilse Koch wannabe.”

The spark of it took her all the way back to— _her_ pod, now, goddamnit—without quite flagging, let alone dying away; Hill was waiting there already, eyes wide, having caught the whole show. “Thought Schillinger told you NOT to get yourself killed, man,” she said, warily, to which Beecher simply gave a bitter cat-sneeze laugh, holding the door open for her. Replying, as she did: “Yup. Lucky I don't have to give a shit _what_ Vee says anymore, huh?”

“Ho, you crazy.”

“That's the rumor. Spread it 'round.”

The next few days brought a return of Rhea O'Reilly's hovering presence, absent since Vee's ultimatum, for which Beecher was definitely grateful—but also a constant influx of new potential jailhouse patrons, alternately pestering her with courtship gifts or flexing to impress, delivering veiled threats couched to sound like proposals while Mack's bunch looked on, alternately snickering (Gorman et al) and fuming (Mack herself). The hacks stood around in the background looking entertained, probably taking odds on who'd manage to ream her first. “Am I literally the only bitch in this prison who puts out?” Beecher asked O'Reilly, in a sidelong mutter, as they sat in front of the TV bank. “Is that what all this fucking...feeding frenzy is about?”

O'Reilly shrugged. “In their defence, Vee made you sound pretty spectacular. Not that I'm interested, 'cause—”

“—you're not a dyke? Newsflash, neither am I!”

O'Reilly, raising an eyebrow: “Beech, that ship has _sailed._ ”

Beecher looked around, mutinously; saw studs licking their lips as far as the eye could see, and wondered, baffled: _Do people truly not get that protection aside, I did that shit with Vee mainly because I liked her—by the end, anyways? Or that I DON'T like most've them, anymore than they like me?_ That wasn't the point, though, and she knew it; she was a status symbol to these chicks, a human bling chain with benefits. Not to mention how rooking her out from under the Sisterhood would be quite the slap in the Aryans' collective face, which probably explained why Mack wasn't finding the whole thing so amusing as she once had, right at the start.

“You've also got a no shank rep,” O'Reilly pointed out; _Not yet,_ Beecher thought, but didn't say. “So the good part is, it does come down to havin' to air-hole somebody, nobody's gonna ever think it was you. That's a positive, in my books.”

“Mmm-hmh. Filing that away.”

At lunch, Adebisi leaned across the counter with her hair-net at a rakish angle, furling her tongue at Beecher lasciviously. “Schillin-jah leave you lonely, leetle pussy? I weel take you bahck, maybe. Eef you beg.”

Beecher snorted, dishing herself out a lump of congealed potatoes. “You like open wounds, Simone?” she replied, clicking her teeth together; Adebisi just chuckled, like: oh, YOU. While Wangler banged two pot-lids from behind her, reminding Beecher: “Yo, teeth knock out real easy, _lawyer._ ”

“You don't say! Fuck you too, Kendra, and _not that way._ Wanna go?”

“Anytime, hooker!”

Voice raising, lips peeling back in a snarl: “ _Yeah?_ Lemme just check my schedule; oh _wow,_ looks like right _now_ 's good for me, you fucking little—”

Hacks to the left of her, heads whipping 'round; gangstas and the rest to the right, whooping and hollering in anticipation. But before things could accelerate further, O'Reilly intervened, pulling her away into the kitchen, where she threw her up against the side of the freezer. “The fuck you doin', Beech?” she demanded, to which Beecher spat back: “I'm tired of this shit, that's all; it's not funny anymore, and it's getting fucking old. Some random motherfucker tries to stake a claim on me just one more time, I'm liable to run wild up and down the halls of Oz yelling _Pussy sale is OVAH, people! Beecher's legs are officially closed for business!_ ”

“Sounds more like you're tired of livin', but okay, whatever—just take a break, calm the hell down before you get hurt. Got some smack I could float you, you think that'd help...” Beecher shook her head, blood-haze having already dimmed far enough for her to start to feel foolish, and was slightly intrigued to see O'Reilly look more relieved than disappointed in the idea that Beecher actually didn't want to fall face-first back into her old patterns. Adding, quickly, as if to cover it up: “Okay, fine, but seriously: keep on playin' it this way, you're gonna wreck yourself, and fast; Mack's already on the fuckin' warpath, case you hadn't noticed.”

Beecher made a scoffing noise. “Mack's not gonna do shit to me, so long as she still thinks I might be able to pull another Robson with her appeal; that's the only thing Vee put in place she still has any respect for, pretty much. And besides—” _—Vee made provisions,_ she was almost about to say, but stopped, unsure if Vee'd meant that last part to be sort of a secret. Not to mention how this vaunted Lardner-era friend of hers (Keller?) hadn't even shown up, as yet; in her darker moments, Beecher was starting to wonder if she'd ever existed, outside of Vee's need to look powerful even as Oz's front gates were mere hours away from hitting her in the ass.

O'Reilly nodded. “I get that; you were straight enough with me about _my_ chances, which I appreciate, 'cause you must'a known I'd've bent over backwards to keep you alive, I thought there was a snowball's chance in hell I could walk outta here before my tits're down around my ankles.” Which was maybe giving Beecher more credit for thinking strategically than she was entitled to, but Beecher didn't contest it. “Think about this, though, okay...what if ya _can't?_ ”

And: That really would be the million-dollar question. Wouldn't it.

***

"You lookin' to get yourself killed, Beecher?" McManus asked her, later on, probably unaware everyone else had asked her that first; "No SIR," she replied, eyebrows hiking, like it was the world's stupidest question, which did defuse him somewhat. "Well...just stop picking fights, okay? There's too many people in the Hole already, and Dr Nathan says he's running out of beds," he told her, finally, and she nodded: _will do, boss._ But on some level, as she walked away, Beecher had to wonder what her own motivations really were, aside from some vague sense that the way to finally master her own fear of physical pain was to turn it inside-out cut with the extremely specific belief that if she allowed herself to be scared into becoming Mack and posse's resident house bitch, she really would never be able to look at herself in the mirror again.

Now she thought about it clearly, Beecher saw that she'd respected Vee enough to play along with her almost from the very start of their “arrangement,” both in bed and out. But Mack merited no such slack—hell, Beecher had more retroactive sympathy for Jill Robson, and that was really saying something. Prisoner number 96M542, Marta Mack, convicted June 1, '96, of murder in the second degree, vandalism, hate crimes; a punk in all senses of the word, dumb enough to get caught marking up a Jewish tombstone with a swastika then vicious enough to murder a black man who worked in the same cemetery, apparently without considering there might just be enough people visiting their dead relatives on hand to be able to pick her out of a line-up. Sentence: seventy years, up for parole in forty.

Nobody was ever going to reconsider Mack's judgement, not really—that was just another pre-choreographed routine Beecher'd tacitly agreed to act out for Vee's benefit, instantly rendered obsolete the moment the hacks ceased to call out: “#92S110, Schillinger!” every count. But though the collapse of Mack's appeal was virtually a foregone conclusion, neither Beecher nor the Aryans could have seen its eventual fallout coming.

Beecher was in the gym when Mack finally came at her, doing Vee's workout with O'Reilly spotting in return for boxing practice; heard the Mickstress go “Oh shit,” right as she spun out of a grapple, then turned to find Mack already close enough to spit at, all up in her face with one hand behind her back, probably feeling for a shank. “You threw my appeal, you fuckin' whore!” Mack accused her, to which Beecher shot back, sparks suddenly popping all over her body, as if electrified: “Didn't have to, idiot: your _appeal_ was a dud from word go, the world's longest long shot, and everybody knew it but you—shit, _Vee_ probably knew it, but I played along anyways, to make her happy; now that's done with, thank Christ. Which is why as of right now, I _quit._ ”

Mack flushed. “Think you're so fuckin' smart, don't ya? I'm gonna fuck you the fuck up.” O'Reilly glanced 'round, trying to find a guard more interested in intervening than in watching, but the only ones on hand were Metzger and Lopresti, so that was a wash. And: “Beecher—” she began, but Beecher just kept going, running over the rest of her warning like it was Kent Rockwell back from the grave: “Oh yeah? Go ahead and try, I fuckin' invite you. C'm _ONNN!_ ”

Mack lunged for Beecher, as did the chick with the lightning-bolt scalp tattoo, for O'Reilly; O'Reilly side-stepped and tripped bolt-head chick, then slammed her own elbow into the nearest fire alarm, breaking the glass; the alarm went off, jolting both hacks awake as O'Reilly grabbed up enough glass to get on with in one boxing glove-shielded hand, grinding it into bolt-head's face. At almost exactly the same time, Beecher dodged Mack's blade only to find herself snared as Gorman grabbed a big handful of her hair from behind; Gorman kicked her in the back of the knee, forcing her down, and Mack slapped her across the face so hard Beecher's head spun, though that wasn't enough to stop her from upper-cutting Mack right in the vag. ( _Straight hit to the groin hurts MORE with guys, but ain't like it don't hurt us too,_ Vee told her, from the back of her brain.)

Mack doubled up, dropping the shank, after which Gorman and Beecher both scrabbled for it 'til Gorman got it first. Afraid she'd go for a throat-punch, Beecher slammed her head back, breaking Gorman's nose, which forced her to let go—Beecher tried to heave upwards but now Mack was there, trying to get Beecher in a head-lock, so she butted forwards instead, driving Mack back against a handy weight-bench; they both stumbled and flipped, coming down ass-first with Beecher on top, so hard it felt like something gushed out of her ( _oh shit, did I just piss myself? THAT's suave_ ).

Gorman was still coming for her, nose streaming blood, and Beecher could feel rather than hear Mack yelling something from under her back ( _Scalp the bitch!_ , it later turned out, according to O'Reilly's testimony). The next thing Beecher knew, Gorman had a thick lock from somewhere above Beecher's left eye already half yanked out, sawing away at the base with the shank until it ripped free. Things went red, possibly due to literal blood in Beecher's eyes, and she curled up, double donkey-kicking Gorman in the chest so hard the woman went flying: almost cracked her breast-bone, apparently, bruising the lungs beneath so badly Gorman had her first adult asthma attack.

As Gorman gasped and spasmed, Beecher fell sideways off of Mack, who reared up as Beecher hit the floor, round-housing her; Beecher thought she felt a tooth crack. “Fuck _you,_ ” she exclaimed, surprised by how much it hurt, even as one hand found something heavy—a five-pound barbell—which she swung at Mack before she'd quite formed the decision to consciously. It connected and Mack went back down, knocking her head against the bench once more; out like a light, Beecher panting next to her as the prisoners who'd streamed into the gym after those hacks who'd come to investigate the fire alarm all seemed to give a collective gasp.

“Beech, _shit,_ ” she heard O'Reilly say, with clear respect, and before she knew it everybody else had taken taken it up like a chant: _BeechER, BeechER, BEECHER!_ from one side, _Hands on your fuckin' head, Beecher, goddamnit!_ from the other. She looked down at Mack's slack face and grinned, feeling six-buck martini lunch drunk, then realized that sudden wetness at her crotch wasn't piss at all but blood, the stress-delayed period she'd been expecting for a week at least come on like a flash-flood under pressure, a gooey red tsunami. So—  


—she stuck a hand down her pants, came back up with her palm bright red and slapped it across Mack's face in turn, angling one end up like confused clown makeup. And was still scream-laughing like a fucking hyena over the effect when they dragged her away, yelling so loud her throat was already hoarse: _Sieg Heil, baby! Sieg fuckin' HEIL!_

*** 

Wasn't quite so hilarious by the time C.O. Metzger visited her later on, explaining how it was only Vee's lingering influence that kept him from making sure she somehow managed to kill herself while in Ad Seg. All that wonderful cocooning rage had drained away again, leaving Beecher bleeding freely from crotch and head alike, goose-pimpled all over and cold as a stone, especially when the huge hack swept his eyes over all the parts of her she wasn't quite able to keep hidden; when he suggested she resign herself to apologizing and “making it up to” Mack somehow, she knew better than to argue. Even suggested she start by “making it up” to him only to have him turn her down magnanimously, albeit with a truly creepy smile. “Maybe later,” the bastard said, like it was something to look forward to.

Hole terms usually ran a month from what Beecher'd heard, but having both an open wound in your scalp and a mainly-clean record obviously counted for something, because McManus turned up a scant week in, sexy Dr Gabriel Nathan in tow. “What'd I tell you about the _Hole,_ Beecher?” McManus demanded, as Nathan covered her scab with a bandage, gently trimming as much of the hair that'd grown into it away as he could; Beecher tried her best to look abashed for taking up much-needed space, but she wasn't sure it was persuasive. With a sigh, McManus continued: “Okay, so—Marisol Alvarez threw down with that new Latina queenpin, La Dama, which means I'm gonna have to let you out to make room for them. Needless to say, though, the Aryans still aren't exactly happy with you; I can put you in P.C., if you make a formal request.”

“That won't be necessary.”

“Seriously?” Beecher just looked at him, not wanting to shrug; after a moment he sighed, concluding: “Jesus, _fine,_ then—your funeral, I guess. Now put your clothes back on, and let's go.”

People looked up as she came back into Em City, then away: _Dead woman walking,_ Beecher thought, morosely. Wondering whether or not she had time to write Giles and the kids a letter before it all played out, if she should even try to explain why she'd thrown her own life away over the sort of compromise she'd made a hundred times already, aside from some long-overdue, self-destructive fit of pride. _Just had enough, I guess,_ she concluded, though she knew in her heart it had far more to do with this ridiculous feeling of abandonment...the sense that Vee, for all her talk about “provisions,” had actually simply swanned off knowing she was leaving her to probably get fucked and die, though hopefully not in that order.

In the cell's dim tin mirror, Beecher's reflection looked even more warped than usual. She moved the bandage aside and grimaced at the result, realizing those weird twinkly gleams were proof of her hair starting to go grey 'round that patch she'd lost. A year from then the grey would be almost white, grown out into a streak she'd have the rest of her life, and Chris Keller would've talked her into chopping the rest of her hair off in a shoulder-length bob that grew back edge-of-curly rather than thick and wavy, unruly-tangled, a suitably crazy 'do for Em City's resident maniac; a month into her parole, she'd find herself asking her sister-in-law's hairdresser to go full pixie crop with it in anticipation of pregnancy, then hear Vee in her brain once more as she admired the effect: _Shit you do with all that beautiful blonde HAIR, counsellor, for Christ's sake? You look like Rosemary's fuckin' baby._

From behind her, she heard breathing and boots, ringing the floor like a knell; Beecher made fists, determined to go down fighting. Turned to see Mack lounging in the pod door, face bruised yellow-brown but thumbs in her belt-loops, like she was anticipating sliding those suckers off and getting busy. “Ready to behave yet, Bitch-er?” she asked, smile curling clammy, like a dead worm in sunlight.

Beecher (brightly): “On a scale of UTI to yeast infection, that'd be a solid nope.”

Mack's face went blank. To Gorman: “Guess you win the pool, Luce.” Cracking her knuckles: “'Kay, let's get to it.”

Beecher shifted back, fists up, taking the same _Bitch I'm'a End You_ stance Vee'd probably taught them both. Snapping, as she did: “Fuck you, Tampax. _Bring_ it!”

From behind the Aryans, another voice intruded—low, husky, weirdly charming. “'Scuse me...” And when Mack and Gorman turned to see, they each got a cast-aided strike right to the face, followed up with a rock-back cross that really should've been on TV: BANG, pop, _boom_ ; Gorman's already-broken nose squished down further, spurting blood, while Mack's skewed in a way that'd leave enough of a lump to make her look like a German Barbra Streisand, from now on. “Yo, the HELL?!” C.O. Poole yelled from the watch station, sending the rest of them scattering—Mack and Gorman made tracks with equal swiftness, albeit in the opposite direction. Leaving Beecher to look her mysterious savior in the face for the first time, though hardly the last: a predatory beauty with a raptor-sharp profile, taller than Beecher but shorter than Ross, not to mention equal-parts gym-hard and pneumatic in a way most women could only dream of being—racked and stacked, fine as hell and well aware of that same fact, from her smirking lips down one long, long leg and back up again, to where that tattoo of Christ crucified displayed itself across one finely tuned shoulder and upper arm combination.

“Chris Keller,” she said, offering her cast-less hand. “Vee told you I was comin', right?”

“...I remember.”

Keller's eyes were dark blue under equally dark, quirked brows. “Ya know,” she said, at last, after coolly surveying Beecher from head to toe, “you are—pretty much _nothing_ like the way you were described to me.”

Beecher swallowed, throat gone abruptly dry. “Yeah, well,” she replied, eventually, “it's been a shitty month.”


	5. Oh Darling, It's So Sweet, You Think You Know How Crazy, How Crazy I Am

Back in the now, Toby's putting Holly and Gary's school backpacks together for tomorrow when the phone rings; she answers it already braced for the Oz switchboard, only to get Sister Pete instead. “Hello, Tobit? Please don't hang up.”

“Sister, always a pleasure. What can I do for you?”

“Chris Keller tells me she's been trying to get in touch.”

“That's true enough, and I've been avoiding her, like I assume she's already let slip. Not sure how all that involves you, though, exactly.”

There's a brief pause, and Toby can almost see the nun trying to put her next sentence together on the phone's other end, playing the most potentially effective options through in her head. “Chris has been in somewhat of a...dark place, since you left,” she begins, at last, to which Toby just snorts, unamused. “Chris's whole _life_ is a 'dark place,'” she replies. “People tried to tell me as much when we were together, but I didn't want to know—and since you were one of them, as I recall, this is a pretty funny conversation to be having, in context. Well, I'm finally convinced; if she wants sympathy, she's gonna have to go looking for it somewhere else, for once.”

“That's a bit harsh, don't you think?”

“Mmmm...no, not really. The woman's a damn serial killer, Sister; I'd never testify to that, but I know it's true. She lies like she breathes, for fun _and_ profit. Tried to kill herself in order to frame me for felony murder and lose me my parole, like she could could die happy knowing I was still in Oz, even if she wouldn't be around to reap the friendship-with-benefits anymore herself. I wasted two whole years of my life with Chris Keller, but that's over now—I have real stuff to concentrate on, out here. My husband, my family, rebuilding my career...”

“Elizabeth Olivet says you're pregnant again.”

“Going on two months, yes. Why?”

“Because I _care_ about you, Tobit.” A beat. “Does it make you happy?”

“Doesn't make me _un_ happy. This is probably my last chance for another child, so—lucky accident, I guess. Are we done yet?”

“No. I need you to come up to Oz and see Chris, in person; she needs to talk to you, face to face, before she does something extremely unwise.”

“I doubt I could convince Chris of anything she hadn't already decided to do, Sister, seriously; never could before, after all. Besides which, I'm not legally allowed to drive, and I am _not_ telling Giles about this, either. I have to put my family first, like I always should have.”

“That's...very admirable of you.”

Toby wants to laugh, feels it like a bubble rising high inside her throat and twisting, dissolving itself in its own acid long before it reaches her lips. “Hardly,” she replies. “But better late than never, huh?”

A long pause follows. The house is silent, yard outside still bright and flat, like wallpaper; nothing penetrates through those big bay windows, the double-thick sliding doors. Outside, there'll be passing cars and birdsong, the noise of trees, digs in the distance. In here, however, there's nothing but Toby's own breathing, the tick of an analog clock—no clash of contact doors, no buzzers, no cursing or squabbling. After five years in Oz, it's like she's suddenly gone deaf.

“Chris talks about confessing, sometimes,” Sister Pete says. “Death Row as suicide, make the State foot the bill. I've seen it before.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe she should; might give the victims' families closure, after all this time. That's what Agent Taylor keeps telling me.”

“I don't think those cases are what she's planning to confess to, actually. Do you remember Guard Metzger?”

Toby takes a moment, breathes in long and slow. “Of course,” she says, finally. Thinking: _But that wasn't her...not ONLY her, anyhow._

“Mmm. And how would you feel about that, Tobit? If she did?”

Cold: “Does it matter?”

“Despair's a truly terrible thing, especially in Oz; you know that, I think, as well as anybody. So if you could simply come _talk_ to her, just once—”

“Listen: I get that you care, Sister, and that's great; you're a much better person than either of us, always were. I hope Chris understands how lucky she is to have you in her corner. Plain fact is, though, the only way I'm ever going back to Oz is in handcuffs, and maybe not even then—because to be frank, if I ever think it's likely to come to that, I'll make them kill me first.”

Now it's Sister Pete's turn to draw breath, sharp as a gasp. “I'm very disappointed in you, Tobit,” is all she replies, at last—and Toby really _does_ laugh at that, bitterly. Having expected nothing less.

“Join the club, Sister,” she tells her, replacing the receiver.

***

With Keller, the honeymoon phase took effect almost immediately after McManus agreed to move Gussie Hill out again, Keller in—mainly because it was cheaper by far than trying to juggle things so that Beecher and the Aryans wouldn't run into each other or sending Beecher to P.C. against her will, or so he claimed. That night, Chris finished flossing, spat and turned 'round, leaning back against the sink, grinning up at Beecher where she sat on the top bunk reading, skirt hiked up around her hips but legs demurely crossed. “Yeah, Vee had lots to say 'bout _you,_ ” Chris told her, suggestively, to which Beecher just rolled her eyes. “Told you I was a pretty little pussy, is that it?” she shot back.

“That you _had_ one, sure.”

“Oh, uh huh. Well...” And here she cracked her thighs open by degrees, flashing the panties-less item in question like she was Sharon Stone gone Women in Prison, or some shit: “...you tell me.”

Thinking: _Screw this, man; I don't even know you, aside from you're the chick I'm apparently supposed to let do me on the regular from now on, right? I mean, that's what Vee told me—her last order, really. So let's FUCK._

Which they then went on to do, naturally enough—but right from the start, Chris met all the nastiest tricks Vee had taught Beecher with a weird gentleness that eventually began to read like a completely different form of dominance: soft and slow, neither violent nor overpowering, yet nevertheless somehow always managing to position Beecher exactly the way she wanted, to produce the response she was looking for rather than the effect Beecher was after. Vee'd been wonderfully selfish in her way, prone to mistake quantity for quality, but Chris was more a gourmet than a gourmand; what turned her on most was the excruciatingly slow process of turning Beecher out, making her blush and quiver. Making her like what was happening far too much, almost enough to hate herself for liking it.

“Oh, man,” Chris said into the side of her neck, admiringly, while Beecher twisted underneath her with her lip between her teeth, straining to keep silent even as aftershocks rocked her up and down, soaking Chris's hand almost to the wrist. “You're _complicated,_ ain't ya, baby? Bet'cha Vee doesn't even know just how much.”

And: “You like that idea, I guess,” Beecher managed, voice gone thin. “Doing stuff to me Vee didn't, stuff she couldn't? Getting what Vee never had?”

Keller just grinned, shameless: “Hell, I _love_ that, and you do too—don't lie. I got proof.” Brought her sticky fingers back up, licking them clean, then guided Beecher's own hand down in turn by the thumb and forefinger, using them to pinch her own clit 'til she groaned out loud. “Mmmm yeah, right there, _just_ like that. Mmm, you 'n' me are gonna have so much fun, Toby, honey; fight all day and fuck all night, just like Viking fuckin' heaven. Vee'd be turning green if she could see us, and that's the truth.”

“Um, aaah— _you_ 're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?”

A shrug as she sunk down, stirring Beecher's thumb 'round inside herself to the second knuckle, hot as hell and twice as wet. “Never had a reason not to be,” Chris replied, leaning in to half suck, half lap at one of Beecher's still painfully-hard nipples, then laughing at the hopeless whine she drew in return. “Oh, what's the matter, baby...you need a little break? Some time to re-charge?”

“...you offering?”

“Nah. Breaks are for dudes.”

Over the next few weeks, things kept on arranging themselves into what would eventually become the new routine. Mack was still angry, but the other Aryans mainly fell into line, especially once they heard from Vee—via Metzger—that Beecher's welfare should officially be considered Keller's business from now on. A few more two-steps with Keller later, meanwhile, and Mack seemed to lose interest entirely, though Beecher suspected that might really have had something to do with Vee asking Metzger to give Mack that part of the message again personally, since Mack “fell down the stairs” and broke her arm shortly before disengaging for good. One way or the other, it all became pretty moot once Mack and a few younger Aryans attached themselves to an escape plan discovered already in progress, bullying Rebadow's new podmate Clytemnestra Busmalis (a longtime tunneller known as “the Mole”) into letting them piggyback on Busmalis's latest attempt to dig her way out of the correctional system; the Mole conveniently “forgot” to put the necessary supports in, leading to Mack and the others burying themselves alive.

Afterward, the remnants of Vee's prison kids—forcibly relocated to Unit B, now that McManus had finally washed his hands of trying to rehabilitate them—re-organized themselves under Lucy Gorman's management, and things went back to “normal.” Gorman actually approached Beecher at her desk in Sister Pete's office, alone, to ask her directly to keep working on her parole application, which Beecher graciously agreed to do for old time's sake. “Need to keep myself busy, mentally speaking,” she told Keller and O'Reilly, who agreed, though Keller made a show of being insulted that their shared nightly extracurriculars apparently didn't constitute enough of an intellectual workout to meet Beecher's high standards. “Harvard,” O'Reilly reminded her, sidelong.

Between Gorman's case plus Said's class action civil suit against Oz and Governor Devlin over the riot deaths, Beecher was able to kill as much free time as possible until the next few bouts of drama kicked in, reminding her exactly why she'd always assumed falling in love while in Oz was nothing but a recipe for certain disaster.

First came O'Reilly's brush with breast cancer and the headlong crush on Dr Nathan she'd developed in its wake, _that_ whole mess—a first-hand demonstration of the way that vulnerability could translate into passion then back to vulnerability again even for the hardest of hard-cases, rendering every look or touch an open wound. Beecher'd only narrowly managed to persuade O'Reilly not to involve her mentally challenged kid sister/former lieutenant Cynda in the mix, at the risk of leaving them both permanently stranded in the same hell-bound hand-basket; instead, she'd suggested O'Reilly turn her charming asshole of an ex-husband Shane on Nathan's equally estranged wife, trusting he could accelerate her apparently innate sluttiness well beyond the point where Nathan would even consider reuniting with her anymore. This freed O'Reilly up to work her wiles on Nathan directly, eventually seducing him into a prison romance of epic proportions which energized rather than depleted her usual scheming (up until she got pregnant, that is).

There was less of a happy ending for Said, who became briefly yet intensely involved with Patrick Ross, Sasha's brother, a handsome white devil who Arif and Khan both considered seriously _haram._ She and the rest of the Muslims had already started to clash on various small issues here and there, mainly to do with points of separatism (impossible to enforce inside Oz), but the situation certainly wasn't helped by the fact that whenever her sisters wanted to take issue with one of Said's rulings, they'd inevitably begin by pointing out that as women, all of them were supposed to be referring any questions they might have about scriptural interpretation through an outside imam anyhow.

“It's bad enough that you involve Beecher in our dealings,” Beecher overheard Arif arguing one day, “with her filthy habits and even filthier friends, always using her deviant sexuality to broker whatever dirty deal she has in play...”

“We're both lawyers,” Said replied, “as are the only 'filthy friends' of hers I'm interested in. Without Beecher's help, we'd be standing here uncovered for every profane eye to see.”

Khan: “What Arif means is that we should perhaps learn to deal with our problem ourselves, without involving the devil!”

“We live in the devil's belly, Hamida. He's _always_ involved, whether we like it or not.”

“Perhaps so,” Arif put in. “Yet 'cooperation with an illegitimate system only legitimizes it,' Sister... _you_ wrote that.”

Said grit her teeth. “Much as I do love to be quoted,” she replied, at last, “those words were purely theoretical when I wrote them, and Oz isn't the place for _theory._ ”

The next day, Beecher and Said met in the library to discuss victim impact statements. “I could draft Patrick Ross's testimony from now on, if you wanted,” Beecher suggested. “Maybe if it's devil-on-devil action only, Arif and Khan might—”

“I don't _care_ what Arif and Khan have to say about it, not in this case and not in any other, either!” Said snapped, then looked down, tone softening. Concluding as she did: “...but that's not good, really. Is it.”

“Probably not, no. Given they're who you have to live with.”

“Yes. Patrick goes home and I stay here, with them. And eventually the case ends—”

“—we _win_ the case, you mean.” Off Said's brief, white smile: “Anyhow...no point in losing friends over it, right? Melanin aside, or lack thereof, you guys all have a lot more in common than any of you ever will with Patrick; he's a nice guy, but he's not exactly deep. And pride goeth before a fall, all that.”

“ _Faith_ aside, I often find I have more in common with you than I have with them,” Said observed, morosely. “Filthy habits and all.”

“Benefits of a Ivy League education, right? 'There is no Harvard but Harvard.'”

“Blasphemy, Beecher. Yet not entirely untrue, all the same.”

***

So yes: in Oz, even the most tenuous form of love was more of a liability than usual, impractical from the get-go, shading to suicidal depending on the occasion. Thus making Beecher's arrangement with Keller look damn good by comparison, with its immediate skip over the softer feelings straight into x-rated territory...but while Chris initially claimed to agree with Beecher's assessment, it quickly became obvious she really did want more than a quick kiss and a lengthy fuck out of the whole shebang; that she actually took Beecher's belief in utility over affection as a variety of personal challenge, in fact.

“That husband of yours, Tobe,” she said, ghosting her fingers over Beecher's shoulders as Beecher tried to find some way to get what was left of her hair up into a little pigtail, so she could look both Giles and her kids in the eye without interference. “What is it he does, again? Somethin' upscale, right?”

“He's in hedge fund management. His Dad's a banker, and his Mom—well, she used to run a boutique, I think, but she's retired. She mainly designs gardens now, for her friends and her friends' relatives.”

“And your family, they're all lawyers?”

“My Dad and my brother, yes. Mother was an accounting department executive secretary before she got married, at the same firm. Why?”

“No reason.” A beat. “Don't you wanna know what _my_ folks do?”

 _Not really,_ Beecher felt like admitting, but didn't. So: “Surprise me,” she said, instead.

Chris snorted. “Nah, think I'll pass. Girl's gotta keep _some_ mystery.”

(Father claimed to have been a merchant marine, Agent Taylor told Beecher, later on, but he hadn't been in the picture since shortly after Chris was conceived; her mother'd started out as a waitress, then slipped into prostitution and minor-league dealing by the time Chris was five. She lost custody when Chris was eight, and after that, it was foster families all the way down. No siblings. No living grandparents. No support system of any kind, not until Chris's first arrests landed her first in Juvie, then Lardner. The last time she'd filled out an employment application she'd put Vee's name down as her emergency contact, and she hadn't even gotten her address right.)

The contact visits room was empty except for Giles, who looked up as Beecher entered, unsmiling. “What happened to your hair?” he wanted to know; “Where's Holly and Gary?” she countered.

Giles looked uncomfortable. “Your parents took them today, so you and I could talk. Listen Toby...”

 _Well, THAT doesn't sound good,_ Beecher thought.

As it ensued, in all the excitement surrounding Mack's gym attack, Beecher'd entirely forgotten that she'd been scheduled to see her family the very next day; Giles and the kids had arrived at the specified time, only to be met by McManus, who told them she'd landed herself in the Hole for almost fracturing a woman's skull, then painting her face with human waste. “Holly couldn't sleep for a week,” Giles said, “and Gary's started acting out at school. It's bad enough that they can't explain where you _are_ without reminding everyone about what you did—”

“It's called vehicular manslaughter, Giles, and who says they can't talk about it? Mother?”

“They're ashamed, Toby. Afraid the other kids will make fun of them, that they'll be pariahs. You can understand that, surely.”

Quieter: “Yes.”

“And they worry about you, same as I do. Are you still associated with those...friends of your cellmate's?”

“Vee made parole, so no; that fight was the last of it, hopefully. I have a new cellmate now.”

“I don't know why you ever even got involved with a bunch of neo-Nazis in the first place.”

“I wasn't _looking_ to, exactly, but in here, you need back-up; this is Oz, not a fuh—a damn country club. Not to mention how it could've been a whole lot worse.”

“I believe you.” A slight pause. “This new cellmate of yours. Is she nice?”

“By some standards.” Adding, with a sigh, as he kept on looking at her: “She's fine, thanks. Everything's fine.”

“I'm glad.”

The unspoken question, left hovering between them: _And are you having transactional sex with HER, too? Pussy for protection, etcetera?_ Plus the answer, equally unvoiced: _Well, as a matter of fact..._ Giles would never go that far, though, no matter how might he might want to; he was far too polite, too socially well-trained. But then again, it wasn't as though Beecher was volunteering the information, either.

“Time in Administrative Segregation isn't going to look good on your record,” Giles said, at last, to which Toby just snorted. Pointing out: “Think I blew my chances of looking good on paper back when I got hooked on heroin, really, though hopefully the legal work I'm doing in here will count for something. Might be able to count on some positive character testimony from Sister Peter Marie, or McManus, you get him on a good day.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed. “So long as you keep sober, that is.”

A grim, tight smile: “Doing my level best, hon.”

On her way back to their pod, Chris fell into step with Beecher, holding the door open for her with gentlemanly flare, like it was their second date. “You look pissed,” she commented. “Just shut the fuck up and _fuck_ me,” Beecher retorted, and threw her up against their bunk-bed, kissing her hard.

The week after, McManus got the bright idea to call in Judge Lima, who apparently wanted to apologize in person for giving Toby the maximum sentence allowed, not to mention glaring at her through the whole trial like she was trying to burn holes in her with her eyes. Beecher thought it was a clear case of too little too late on the one hand, not enough yet too much on the other, but found herself telling Lima she understood how it'd happened. “We're both mothers, just like Mrs Rockwell,” she said, “so I probably couldn't have been impartial, either. And little good as it does me now, I do get that when you stuck me in this cum-hole, it was because I actually did _kill_ somebody, so...is fifteen years fair? No more than me being alive, and Kent Rockwell being not. Does saying sorry make me feel better about any of it? Not really, but then again, I'm pretty damn hard to please; hope it helps _you_ sleep a little better, if nothing else. Thanks, McManus; this WAS therapeutic.”

That night, even Chris's expert touch wasn't enough to make Beecher forget the look on Lima's face when she'd walked out—stricken, white-lipped, like she'd been hoping for some sort of forgiveness Beecher knew herself incapable of delivering, one neither of them merited. She fell asleep contorted, muscles still in knots, only to wake with that awful nightmare thump in her ears—the same dream but worse, like a self-fulfilling prophecy: Kent Rockwell's face swapped out for Gary's with Holly in the seat next to her, horrified eyes wide as plates and hands clapped over her open mouth, like she was trying to stuff her own scream back down where it'd come from. Beecher spasmed herself into a sitting position then sat there weeping inconsolably, unable to settle again 'til Chris stood up from the bottom bunk and folded her in, cradling her the way Beecher should have probably been cradling one (or both) of her own children, those well-cut arms of hers both warm and strong.

“Bad night, huh?” Chris asked, finally. “When I can't sleep, I try thinkin' about all the stuff I miss, from outside—takes your mind off things to do that, sometimes. Like I miss my bike, you know, just jumpin' on and ridin' full-speed into the dark on a hot summer night, not lookin' to go anywhere special...go fast enough and it's like you're gonna disappear or kill yourself, whichever comes first.”

Beecher gave a wet, bitter little laugh. “Was that supposed to be a _comforting_ image?”

“For me, yeah—but I'm special. So what do _you_ miss most, Toby?”

 _I miss the part of my life when I thought I knew I was a good person._ But for some reason, she didn't want to repeat that particular thought out loud. So instead, she thought about it a moment more before replying, very quietly: “Not knowing exactly what I'm capable of, if you push me too far.”

Chris stayed still a long minute, and silent. Then said, just as soft: “Yeah, I get that.”

It wasn't until later—much later—that Beecher finally realized Chris hadn't followed up that comment with what most people would assume was the natural second part of that sentence, not out loud, or at all; that it'd only echoed in Beecher's mind, handily supplied by her own subconscious. That the one thing Chris Keller'd never said was: _Me too._

***

Things were comfortable between them, or seemed so, at least. Until one day—suddenly, and without warning—they just weren't, anymore.

What was that phrase, the one Sister Pete'd been so fond of? Oh yeah: _When somebody tells you who they are, BELIEVE them._ All those times Chris had boasted about how easy it was to make a mark connect with you, just find some area of emotional commonality and press on it—don't be afraid to go deep, mine your own hurts, so long as you can use those wounds to make your target feel your pain is somehow akin to theirs, as though the two of your share matching scars. Develop affinity, complicity, a weird Jungian shadow-self twinship; even though Beecher would've been willing to bet Chris didn't know a single one of those words, she obviously understood the underlying concepts on an almost instinctual level, like she'd been born with “quid pro quo” tattooed on some highly intimate area. Like: _I'll show you mine, baby—admit my many faults in detail so you can have the epiphany I supposedly never did, get you excited to map out the ways they've shaped me, the same way yours shaped you. And once that's done, it'll be YOUR turn to play...diagnose me like a pro, plan out how you'll help me save my own life, then pay ME for the motherfuckin' privilege._

 _You LIKE having that kind of power over people, huh?_ Beecher had asked her. _'Specially when you can trick them into giving it to you._ To which Chris had simply grinned and rolled her eyes as though all this was kindergarten shit, so remedial it barely merited explanation: _'Course I do, Beech, ya dumb-ass. Hell, wouldn't YOU?_

( _Bet you've argued your way 'round enough poor saps in court to fill a square city block, then gone out, got drunk and charged the damage in on top—now am I right, or am I right? Just the same scam on a different day, and I didn't even have to go to Harvard first, to learn it._ )

In hindsight the pattern was so obvious it made Beecher want to reach back and slap her past self 'round the chops, cursing herself for a gullible fucking moron; two years plus in Oz, all that grief and scheming cut with sex, lies and blood, yet she'd apparently been just as baseline street-dumb as the minute she'd walked in. Because even after all that, she _still_ hadn't seen it coming.

The day it all went down, Beecher'd caught a glimpse of Chris through the laundry room wall right as she was strolling back in from Sister Pete's weekly mandatory addiction counselling meeting, sitting morosely on top of a bank of washing machines with a not too well-hidden specimen jar of Unit B moonshine in one hand, sneaking a snort every time she thought the hacks' attention was elsewhere before slipping it back behind the detergent boxes. Felt an odd little shock as she instantly recognized what the stuff Chris was drinking had to be just going by the effect it was having on her body language, and before she knew what she was doing she was licking her lips, mouth literally watering.

 _This has to stop,_ Beecher thought, and strolled in, blocking Chris's eye-line and hissing: “Pssst, idiot—you looking to end up in the Hole? Throw that shit down the drain, before someone figures out what you're doing.”

Chris just took another slug. “Fuck 'em. You want some?”

“I'm an alcoholic, Christine.”

“So...that'd be a no.”

Beecher sighed, not wanting to get into it. “What's wrong?” she asked, instead.

Chris kicked her heels back against the laundry circling beneath her like a little kid, shoulders slumped and squinting at the floor. “Had to see my ex today,” she said, finally.

“Which one?”

“Number three and four, Bobby. Y'know, Mister Fun-Size.”

“Oh yeah.” Beecher mainly knew about Bobby by reputation; O'Reilly'd given her a full report on him and Chris making out in front of everybody in the contact visits suite, which she'd had the opportunity to witness while meeting with Charming Asshole Shane to pass him his last payment package for romancing Slutty Former Mrs Dr Nathan. Unlike Kevin, whose blond good looks and vaguely metrosexual style made him an almost perfect scam partner, or Angel, a Filipino heart-throb who'd enjoyed brief success as an underwear model, Bobby's main claim to fame (aside from having been married to Keller, twice) was being roughly as wide as he was tall, and since he was pretty tall, the sight had been—memorable. “What happened?”

“He doesn't wanna wait. Gave me the papers, again.”

“...I'm really sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” Chris took another pull, swallowing hard, head thrown back; Beecher watched her throat clutch as the hooch made its way down, tensing against the phantom burn. “Forty years is a long fuckin' time, right? Just my luck they banned conjugals right 'fore I got here.”

“From what I hear, you didn't miss much.”

Chris raised a brow. “So you and the hubby, you never...?” But Beecher just shook her head, reminding her: “Vee doesn't share, you know that. Besides, that place was disgusting.”

“Yeah riiight, makes sense.” A long outward huff, breathing fermented fruit and vegetables towards Beecher, who shivered slightly, as if she could taste the too-sweet fumes. “C'mon over here, baby—I hate drinkin' alone.”

“I'm fine where I am, thanks.”

“Oh, you are _that._ 'Kay, then, stay there, you wanna; I ain't too drunk to walk, not yet.” Chris swung herself down off the jouncing machine, up against Beecher in the bare space of a single stride and hoisting the jar so it brushed both their cheeks at once, sloshing musically. Asking, as she did: “Ever tell you why I married ol' Bobby twice?”

“You never did, no.”

“Well, 's a funny story. He's such a sweet guy, y'know, a damn virgin 'til I broke him in, and man, I rode that horse _all_ the way to the bank: cleaned him out, broke him down, sucked the bones. I left him with about five bucks and a broken heart, but then I got to thinkin'...how amazing would it be if I could win him back, make him love me again, hook him even deeper than before? 'Cause me, I'm as bad as they come, man—I'm a piece of shit. But if I could do that, get him to trust me after all I done, then... _anything_ is possible. Don't ya think?”

“That'd be something, all right,” Beecher answered, eyes inevitably drawn back to the jar without her even wanting it, like she was hypnotized. “Chris, though, seriously. Someone's gonna see—”

“No, they're not.”

Before she could protest further, Chris ran her arm up under Beecher's and lifted her bodily, spinning them both in an odd sort of two-step 'round that oh-so-handy molded concrete support column keeping the top deck stairs from crushing in on them through the roof. Behind the column was a tight little space, well known amongst the prisoners as Em City's very own single-couple Lovers' Lane; Chris pressed Beecher back again the wall, kissed her once for luck then took another swig and went deeper still, baby-birding a full gulp of 'shine into Beecher at the same time, like she was giving her mouth to mouth, then grinned wider yet to watch her cough, spitting up as much as she swallowed. “There ya go—that nice, or what? No cars to worry 'bout in here...”

Beecher gasped, head swimming. Protested, thinly: “Chris, I don't, I can't—”

Chris licked the overflow from her lips then bit at a lobe, murmuring hotly in one ear while she slid her free hand down Beecher's pants, digging for treasure. “Baby, 'course you can. Look where you started, where you are now; brought yourself back up from nothin', promoted yourself from livestock to wife without Vee fuckin' Schillinger even seein' it happen—that's more'n _I_ did, first time 'round. Got Robson out, and that took guts; got _Vee_ out, so she owes you forever now, and that ain't nothin' either. And then, when she left you behind—before you knew I really was comin' for you, ready and willing to back you up against any comers? You just kept on goin', you crazy bitch.” Hooking two fingers up inside her and circling the thumb 'round Beecher's clit at the same time, then, alternating pad with nail to scratch that itch in a way specifically designed to make her sluice; Beecher turned away only to find the jar back at her lips, tipping up, pouring. What didn't make it in her mouth slopped down her front, soaking her shirt-front, bringing her nipples up hard as Chris whispered, against her throat: “Pour on enough pressure, in actual fact, I'd be willin' to bet _you_ can do just about _anything._ ”

“I can't _drink,_ though, Chris—Jesus Christ, you know that! Last time I did...”

“No cars in here, Beech," Chris repeated, patiently. "No kids to worry 'bout runnin' over, neither. So just go on ahead and let yourself take it, baby, no blame, no shame. Enjoy yourself, and leave the rest of all this shit to me...”

“Oh, uh, _please,_ Chris. Chris, please _stop._ ”

“ _Nope._ ”

Here Chris tipped the jar up yet one more time, wetting Beecher's lips then licking away the result, teasing her apparently mainly for the pleasure of watching her jolt—to whip her head back and forth, far as the nook's confines would let her, desperate to avoid the next slug. And: “Know what I like best 'bout you, Beech,” Chris asked, “'sides from the obvious? How you lie _almost_ good as me when you gotta, and for someone never had to fight a day in your life you sure don't scare easy. Knock a Nazi down and use her for a maxipad, fuck all night and make a bitch come so hard the hacks need earplugs; yeah, you're somethin', all right. But this shit here, it's your Kryptonite, huh? One whiff and it gets you all loosey-goosey, busts ya right back down, reminds you what happens when ya lose control...”

“Let me _go,_ goddamnit.”

Chris laughed. “Where's the fun in that?” Not enough booze left in jar for both of them anymore, so she gulped the rest of it fast and shoved the jar itself up where Beecher couldn't get at it, in that dusty hole between the stairs' undercarriage and the support column's top, before running her free hand up under Beecher's wet shirt to wrap it lightly 'round her throat. “You're like _me,_ Toby, underneath it all,” she told her, grip tightening ever-so-slowly. “Scratch deep enough, under all that uptown shit, and you hate everything about yourself—'guilty from birth,' remember? _I_ remember.”

“I'm sorry I ever even told you that, you maniac,” Beecher shot back, between her teeth.

Another laugh. “Sure. But you _did,_ so I know how to work you now, just like poor Bobby. 'Cause you, you've always gotta be on top, even when you're on the bottom; that's why you decided to let me halfway in and then just stop, keep on fuckin' me even when you don't really give a damn if I live or die. Well, that's not enough for me, not anymore—I'm in here forever, and half-measures don't mean shit. I want it all.”

“Or what?”

“Or...” Chris's hand tightened that little bit further, like she was testing something; herself, or Beecher. Pressing against Beecher's windpipe 'til her eyesight started to rim itself in black, before finally letting go just in time to fold her back in, twice as hard; snuffling along her jawline as Beecher gulped for air, then dipping back up to plant a last nip underneath one ear, a hickey that'd sting to the touch for weeks to come, like some secret bruise. And concluding, viciously, as they drew apart once more, disengaging both above and below the waist: “...or nothin', I guess. I mean, how _could_ you love me, anyhow? You don't even love yourself.”

“...that's not true.”

“No? Then _prove_ it.”

 _I don't know what the fuck you want from me,_ Beecher thought, helpless, parts still humming from the loss of Chris's contemptuously intimate touch—but that wasn't entirely true, and she knew it. She looked at Chris, so flushed and dark in the laundry-room's unforgiving light, such a wealth of angry pain in the way she held herself, and immediately knew she'd been unkind, selfish; no big surprise there, as every other person in her life could testify. But—

“All right,” she told Chris, opening her arms. And the next thing she knew they were kissing again, this time with real passion...soft and sweet, simple human contact, all residual bitterness boiled away. Kept on doing it until the doors opened and the hacks pulled them apart, dragging Chris away; Beecher's last sight of her for a month was Chris trading punches with C.O.s Howell and Mineo as Beecher knelt there at Metzger's feet with her hands up, dazed by the suddenness of her own capitulation. Feeling the ache in every part of her, the loss of something she hadn't even known she'd wanted: her partner in crime, her protector, her lover.

It was exactly that quick, fight to fading first to fuck, then genuine affection; _unconditional surrender to unconditional love,_ Chris'd say, arrogant bitch. Blame it on the hooch, maybe. Blame it on Oz.

Then she was alone once more, stuck forcibly back inside her haunted house of a head, her own skull's evil echo chamber. Which was when things got _really_ bad.


	6. Sometimes My Mind Don't Shake And Shift, But Most Of The Time, It Does

Every new week begins with meetings, run almost the same way as in Oz—less swearing, maybe. Toby gets up dutifully, goes through the routine, that oh-so-familiar rote genuflection: _Hi, I'm Toby, I'm an alcoholic and an addict..._

(...and a prison bitch, and an Aryan co-conspirator, and a murderer...)

( _Hi, Toby!_ )

She has six whole months outside now, three of them spent pregnant, not that most of the people around her can tell; probably won't start to show 'til her second trimester, like usual. But if nothing else, the kid's sure good for keeping her sober.

Later that week, there's a meet and greet at the kids' school. Toby wears her getting-out-of-Oz suit again, standing there next to a very nice woman who talks for at least ten minutes straight about nothing Toby's very interested in at all, before the woman finally asks her: “And...oh, I'm sorry; who are you, exactly?” To which Toby just smiles, sweetly as she can, and answers: “Yeah, I guess we haven't really met yet, not formally—I'm Giles Devereaux's wife. You know, Holly and Gary's mother?”

“Um...hmmm.”  


“Tobit Beecher. That's my name.”

Hesitant: “Oh yes, I remember now.” The woman waits a surprisingly long time before adding: “It's just...I'd heard you, uh...”

“Were in jail?”

“Oh no, no, that's not what I—”

Toby shrugs, smile twisting even wider, even brighter. Replying, as she does: “Well, I _was._ Ten to twelve, did four, got parole; amazing how that good behaviour really does pay off, you just keep to it. I'm not ashamed. It's like I always tell my kids—bully trouble? Just tell people Mommy's an ex-con! Nobody'll mess with you after that.”

The clear implication, even under all this freshly re-civilized polish: nobody SMART, anyhow.

 _I'm not ashamed;_ yeah, right, Tobit. But then again, that's what the Oz-face Vee (and Chris) taught her is best for, isn't it? Convincing other people you believe your own lies enough to shank somebody over them, especially when it's most patently obvious that you don't.

Pregnancy is easier than Toby remembers in general, this time around. With Gary, the morning sickness came fast and left even faster; with Holly, she felt vaguely nauseous for the first three months, then completely exhausted for the next six. This time, it doesn't seem to come with any sort of side effects at all, not even tender breasts, abdominal swelling or sudden waves of heat—but then again, the real changes don't usually start until Month Four. So they'll all just have to wait and see.

On Friday there's an ultrasound scheduled, so she meets Giles at the doctor's office on their mutual lunch hour, holds his hand while the obstetrician slides her sensor around Toby's greased-up belly and makes what she seems to recall are all the right sort of exclamations when black and white images of yet another nude-hearted, barely humanoid tadpole shows up on the monitor. “Wow, he's really flipping around!” Giles blurts out, proudly—then adds, hastily, a second after: “Oh, I know, I'm sorry...probably too soon to tell, right? We're just so excited.”

 _Speak for yourself,_ Toby thinks. But: “No, we're actually right on time, if you really do want to know,” the obstetrician assures him, and when Giles turns his pleading eyes on her, Toby half-nods, half-shrugs. “I don't mind,” she says. “Go on ahead and tell us, doctor.”

“Okay, then: It's a boy, all right. See the penis, right here?”

And: _Oh, cool,_ Toby muses, nodding again, making herself smile. _Won't end up in Oz, then, at least, if he turns out to have his Mom's impulse control problems. That IS good news._

Giles has to run to make a four o'clock conference call, which is fine enough by Toby. “I'll tell Officer Jones you said hello,” she calls after him, waving, then steps up to the curb, ready to wave down a cab. Before she can, however, someone grabs onto her sleeve and she turns with a hiss, only to be confronted with a woman she knows damn well she's never seen before, yet finds oddly familiar nonetheless: Youngish, tall and strong as a WBA basketball star, her unevenly-trimmed dishwater-blonde hair pulled back in a pair of short pigtails anchored with girly pink bows. Who regards her shyly through pale blue eyes before finally asking, hesitant: “Uh...is your name Toby, miss?”

“Um...”

Which is when she gets it, finally—same narrow-set brows, same bad Irish teeth, same lanky body, albeit with a bit more up top. Looks like a dumber, younger, bigger version of Rhea O'Reilly? This must be the little sister.

 _Used to think her Ma was my Ma too,_ Rhea told Beecher once, haltingly, while holed up in Chris and Beecher's pod for a break between treatments; Beecher'd come back from a hard day at Sister Pete's only to find her curled up in the corner with her knit hat pulled down over her half-bald head, sweat-slick and pale from hours of battling chemo shakes and yearning after Doctor Nathan alike. So she'd shot Chris a look which sent her to guard the door, then simply sat down beside O'Reilly with her arms crossed, carefully keeping herself exactly as far away as Rhea might think she needed to be in order to make sure her “no dyke” cred stayed intact, and let the woman ramble to her shady, Machiavellian heart's content. _Turns out that wasn't true, though, not that we knew, 'til the Old Man finally managed to put the poor bitch in an early grave...but it never made any difference, 'cause Cynda an' me, we were like this, two peas in a pod. She was always taller, always prettier—the boys, man, they used to sniff after her like a pack of dogs, and she played 'em out like dogs, too; she'd make 'em spend every cent they had tryin' to buy their way into her panties, then kick 'em to the fuckin' curb. Only one she really wanted to follow around was me, and I used that like a secret weapon. She'd do any damn thing I asked her to, no talk-back—fight a man three times her size, fuck over a friend, steal the world, whatever._

_So what happened?_

_Ah, it was my fault, like always. We were at this funeral, right? For some made guy we used to buy from, so his whole crew was there, and this guy starts makin' moves—some big, dark, good-lookin' greaseball givin' me the eye right over the coffin, so I nod back and we slip into the bathroom, with Cynda on point. How the fuck was I supposed to know his last name was Ortolani?_

_Yeah, okay. I see._

So here was the crux of it all: the actual thing that'd set Dina Ortolani on O'Reilly in the first place, eventually guaranteeing she'd eventually “have” to make sure Dina got killed. _Hope the sex was good, at least._

 _Anyhow,_ Rhea'd continued, _that wife of his comes sniffin' 'round, and once she figures out what's goin' on, she starts a ruckus. Tries to come at me with a knife, but Cynda gets between us and just as she's bitch-slapping Donna Dina like a two-dollar whore, some other motherfucker picks up one of those big candle-stands and brains her with it. Cynda goes down like a sack of potatoes, won't get up. We both got a good kickin' out of it, but later on, in the hospital..._

And here O'Reilly's voice faded away, just died in her throat with a weird little creek, atypical enough to even make Chris look around, quizzically. Because so little seemed to touch the Mickstress even now, ever, and this—the crack in her voice just said it all, didn't it? This shit _hurt._

 _...they said it was permanent, the brain damage,_ Rhea finished, at last. _That she'll always be like that—a fuckin' twenty-seven year old toddler. Still fine enough for every guy she meets to think they can fuck her but too screwed in the head to remember why that's a bad idea, and when the Old Man gets nasty she cuts and runs like back when we were kids, 'cause she's the nice one—polite, shy, sensitive, innocent. Found her hidin' under a bed one time, can you believe that shit? And it used to be I was there, at least, to tell her what not to do—_

 _—but you're not, anymore,_ Beecher agreed, nodding. _Because—you're in here._

 _Yeah,_ Rhea replied, toneless. _'Cause I just couldn't take it, that one time. 'Cause I got drunk, got high, and joy-rode my way 'cross a bunch of construction workers._

_I remember. From your brief, I mean._

_I know, Beech. I know you do._

They sat there some more, Rhea just staring off into space, her money-coloured eyes as momentarily baffled as Beecher'd ever seen them. _Thing is...she was my back-up, right? Cynda. Then and always, a two-bitch crew, that was us—she'd've done anything I told her to. Still would, probably, I just asked her. But..._ And here Rhea glanced up, stopped dead midway through thinking out loud with an utterly unfamiliar cast to her squinted glare, like she was amazed to realize she was actually thinking about someone else, for a change. _...that'd be bad, right?_

 _Yeah, Rhea, given what you just told me? It'd be_ really _bad._

_Fuck, I know that, goddamnit. Fuck!_

Lucky as hell for all concerned there'd been another way, then, in the end; lucky Beecher'd been around to suggest it, too, right when Rhea was feeling her most vulnerable—vulnerable as it ever seemed like she'd get, at any rate, up until she started missing periods.

So: “...yeah, it is,” Toby finishes, back in the here and now. “Is your name Cynda, honey?”

Cynda O'Reilly's absent gaze brightens a bit, and she straightens, looming over Toby. “Yeah! How'd you know?”

“Just a lucky guess.”

“Rhea said you were smart.”

“That's nice. How is she, anyways?”

“Cranky—more than usual, even. It's 'cause of the baby.”

Toby nods, right hand automatically twitching, like it wants to reach for her stomach. “I know how that is.”

“Oh yeah, you have kids, right? Rhea said. Two?”

“Three, now.” And this time she just can't stop herself; Cynda's already-eyes widen further, tracing the movement. “Ohhhhh,” she says, in an “I get it” kind of tone. Adding, after a moment: “How'd _that_ happen?”

 _Got too used to having sex without a penis in the picture, I guess,_ Toby kind of wants to reply. But she really shouldn't give in to her urge to confuse this now permanently-innocent version of O'Reilly's once sexy, vicious, fast-fisted former Bridge Street Gang lieutenant—it'd be cruel. So: “A lot like it did with Rhea, probably,” is all she says instead. “But why are you here, Cynda, exactly?”

“To tell you Rhea wants to see you. Like...that you should come visit.”

“Visit her, you mean. In person. Up at Oz.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, okay, but—thing is, I'm not going _back_ to Oz, Cynda; not ever, if I can help it. So you have to tell Rhea—”

“Oh, I can't do that, Toby; she'd yell at me. 'Sides, she told me to tell you...you owe her.”

_Aw, shit._

“She said you'd know what she meant. Do you?”

Toby shuts her eyes. “Yes, Cynda. I do.”

***

 _Crazy Beecher on the rag again, man,_ the call'd gone out, up and down Em City: _Crazy, crazy, crazy. That bitch nuts, yo. Stay the fuck away._

Turned out, waiting for somebody else to come out of the Hole was twice as boring as doing Ad Seg time yourself, at the very least. Of course, it probably didn't help Toby'd spent almost the entirety of that month getting drunk off her ass, and not in any particularly covert way; could still vaguely recall O'Reilly and Said both throwing her warning looks and everybody else laughing as she lurched her way down the Em City halls, alternately singing and snarling. It was like that last kiss with Chris had boiled the hard rind off her once more, leaving her unshelled from the inside-out without any sort of protection against her own emotions welling up inside, threatening to spill free at any given moment—still did her work, of course, struggling to walk just enough of the line to keep up appearances, but even a dupe as usually observation-free as Keith McClane quickly managed to figure out her heart just might not be really be in it, anymore.

“Jesus, Toby,” he complained, shuffling through their file on Lucy Gorman, “do NOT tell me you didn't take that second statement yet, like I asked you to!”

“Um...'kay?” Beecher squinted down at her notes, then shook her head carefully, last night's hangover already laid thick overtop this afternoon's buzz. “Uhhhh...no, you're right, this all looks the same to me; no new statement. Sorry.”

“This is time-sensitive, you get that, right? The hearing's next damn week, for Christ's sake.”

“I know, I know that. I just...I'll get it. Just have to track down that chick Gorman was talking about, the one who—um—”

“Knows about those mitigating circumstances? Toby, you...” He stole another glance, assessing her up and down, and Beecher could almost hear him goggle. “...man, you really look _bad._ What is it, the flu or something?”

“Sure.”

“Because if I didn't know better, I'd kinda think you were—”

Toby evil-smiled back at him, brow quirking painfully high and trying to project the missing word with her eyes, like: _Were—what, Keith, exactly? Drunk? HIGH?_ “I'm fine,” she assured him, finally, when that didn't work. “Seriously. It's just...well, I'm in _jail,_ Keith. Sometimes I think you forget that.”

It was a lowball move, but it worked like a charm; Keith flushed, immediately chastened. “I'm...Toby, I apologize,” he stammered. “You're right. I get to go home at the end of this, and you—you don't. I shouldn't be so demanding.”

At that, however, the surge of sour amusement she'd been riding deserted Beecher, all in a rush. And: “ _No,_ ” she replied, suddenly exhausted, “no, Christ, Jesus. Don't cut me any slack, you idiot—I'm an addict, remember? I'll take you for all you're worth, you just let me. So push me, hard, because bullshit like this is what put me in here in the first damn place.”

McManus tried to poke at her, but she blew him off easily; when Said managed to corner her (coming out of that very same laundry room nook, hilariously enough, where she'd been swapping finger-bangs with whoever who could offer her a quick snort of anything not outright cut with bleach) and demanded to know what she thought she was doing to herself, it was equally easy to snap: “Nothing I haven't done before, sister-minister.”

“Obviously not,” Said replied, with admirable restraint. “But after all this, do you really want to jeopardize your _own_ parole?”

Beecher snorted and flipped her a tiny wave as she shouldered past, just two fingers shy of the outright bird. And: “Ask me again when Keller's out,” she called back, not turning.

It was true, though; Beecher hadn't been letting herself think of that eventuality for so long, she'd sort of gotten out of the habit. But her record was fairly clear, still, Marta Mack throw-down incident aside...so she slacked back a tad, resurfaced slowly from her chemical vacation, looked around with bleary eyes at the damage she'd already done and swore to do do better in almost exactly the same way she had after roughly a million other binges—until Agent Pierce Taylor turned up, that was, toting a file folder full of dead women's faces, every one of which looked like hers.

_Take a look for yourself, Mrs Beecher; that Christine, she really has a type, and you're it. Got to think it'll be a little uncomfortable from now on, two of you sharing a cell and...whatever, but there's an easy fix for that. So what do you have to say, hmmm?_

Beecher gave him a long, cold look, feeling her suddenly-empty chest hurt and all her softer, juicier parts clench up hard, in roughly equal measure. Then replied, toneless: _Nothing, because that's exactly what I know, Agent Taylor. Sorry about that._

_I'm sorry too, ma'am. Might've gotten you an early release, you'd only been amenable._

Beecher thought she would've liked to see the fine print on that deal, at least theoretically. But all she'd done instead was call out _Ready to go back now, Guard Mineo!_ and rise, turning her back on that grim, sanctimonious FBI hatchet-face of his, as the contact doors screeched open. After which came a dim memory from maybe an hour later of weaving up a flight of stairs while giggling uncontrollably, barely able to keep herself upright or that jar of hooch she carried from spilling over, before her entire consciousness winked out abruptly as a blown-on birthday cake candle.

And: _How dumb am I, exactly?_ was all she thought she'd kept thinking, almost the entire time. _I mean, really—like, quantifiably? Is it measurable? I'd love to know._

Pretty fucking dumb, in hindsight.

A long darkness followed, broken up with bright, swift bursts of agony. Then she'd surfaced, slowly, to find herself in the infirmary: tied to a bed with reasonably soft cuff-restraints that nevertheless grated every time she moved, rubbing the insides of her wrists raw. Her left leg was casted from the hip down, elevated in traction; Dr Nathan told her she'd been brought in with her femur almost cracked through, flattened as though stepped on by someone heavy enough to crush it, which was why she bore a constant low-grade ache where the two pins he'd had to set there used to be, even now—and granted, they'd had her on morphine at the time, but the hurt from that alone actually kept her from figuring out she'd been raped for a least another day, let alone how thoroughly.

“A C.O. found you on patrol, up on the second tier,” McManus told her, avoiding her eyes. “Had to check twice because you were hidden in back of one of the classrooms, behind the computers. Nathan said you might've been there for—some time.”

“Huh.” Beecher cleared her throat, painfully. “Chalk one up f' th'...system.”

McManus flushed. “Probably would've helped if you hadn't been too damn drunk to yell when it was going on,” he couldn't quite stop himself from snapping back, before shutting up quicker than Beecher'd ever seen him do before once she simply pointed out the five huge bruises ringing her neck: four fingers and a thumb, not quite dark enough you could make out the prints, but close as made no never-mind.

“Choked m'out,” she told him, just to be clear. “Musta been uh'conscious, for most've wha'ppened. Kinda...humane, y'think 'bout it.”

“ _Christ,_ Beecher!”

“Nah, he wasn' there. Thah I recall, 'nyhow.”

Next up was Sister Pete, who covered Beecher's hand with hers sympathetically, the palm of it work-worn and warm as the kind of kiss Toby'd always assumed other people's mothers gave, on occasion. “This isn't your fault,” Pete told her, to which Beecher just laughed, painful-constricted enough it came out more like a sob. Managing, after a moment: “Sure 'snot, siss...er. Never is.”

“It _isn't,_ ” Sister Pete repeated. “You didn't deserve this, not just because you were drunk, or—otherwise impaired. Nobody does.”

“Mmmm. 'Course...nah.”

“Oh Tobit, I wish you believed that.”

To which Beecher simply turned away at last, closing her eyes, a hot tear slipping from each lid's corner. Thinking: _Oh, and I wish I did too, Sister...but I don't, I can't. Not and be responsible, as well...and we all want that, right?_

(Don't we?)

They cut off her supply two days later then kicked her out two weeks after that, back into Em City population with methadone prescription in hand, rocking a fine new set of crutches to match her cast's truncated version, cut down so she had access to both her bruised but otherwise unbroken knees once more. “Who _did_ this?” Chris demanded, the minute she managed to step back inside their pod's door, but Beecher just ignored her, levering herself down onto her bunk. Lay back and stared up at the bottom of Chris's mattress instead, coils and frame pitted-pixilated like a map of the moon's dark side, letting Keller's lying voice wash up over her 'til at last she fell asleep and stayed there, twitching through a tide of entirely new nightmares she thankfully felt rather than saw in fine detail.

 _C.O. found me, huh?_ She'd made herself repeat, slowly, before McManus had the chance to slink away. _Um...which one wah it, 'nyhow? Kinda like tuh...thank 'em, fuh that._ To which Em City's resident wizard had given her an odd damn look indeed, even for him, as though the question itself was lifting stones in his brain he'd really rather have left unturned.

 _Karl Metzger made the first report, come to think,_ he'd answered, at last. _You know him, right?_

(And: _Yes, Timmy-boy, I sure do._ )

Lying there in between bouts of literally shitting blood and thinking it all out, as calmly as the situation permitted—because of _course_ it'd been Metzger, that giant blond-ass fucking Aryan fuck. Of _course_ he'd been watching from the sidelines as she freed herself from the rest of Vee's prison kids, just waiting to take advantage; he'd never exactly been able to talk Vee into letting him stick his ox-dick into her pure-White holy of holies, from what Beecher'd heard tell, so what the hell, he'd obviously decided Vee's well-worn little chew-toy'd do just as good if not better, in a pinch. Because in here, everything about Tobit Beecher was still all about Vee Schillinger, and always would be. And besides...

 _...besides which,_ she heard Metzger's voice say in the back of her head, horribly reasonable—and was that just her imagination, or might that actually be an honest-to-badness memory seeping through, rising up from blackness in a haze of half-hidden trauma?— _not like you didn't offer, is it, Beecher? Back then._

Back after Mack, he'd've meant, before she'd ever known Keller was more than just a bullshit pitch to keep her calm while Vee packed up her shit, a name plucked from the air and a swift kiss goodbye. Back in the _Hole._

So yes, that was right after all, then; she'd already said she would, just not when, or where, or how. Which really made it only fair she should put up and shut up, at least retroactively—especially considering that just like she'd told McManus, Metzger had at least been nice enough to knock her the fuck out, beforehand.

But here was Keller to interrupt her recollections again, right on time, leaning down from the top bunk in the post lights-out dusk and whispering, as she did: “Toby, fuckin' _talk_ to me, already—c'mon, baby, you know how it is. Vee finds out I fell down on the one damn job she gave me, it'll be my ass...and you like my ass, you know you do. Just like I like yours.”

Oh, and that wouldn't be good for either of them, would it? Beecher thought, coldly. Not knowing who Vee was likeliest to learn that particular information from, in context.

Well, screw it.

“Thought you got a do-over, was that it, Chris?” she asked her, without moving. “I mean, Vee asks you for a favor 'cause she thinks you have to do it, 'cause you owe her...but she's not _in_ here anymore, is she, to help _or_ to hurt, so maybe you think fuck her and her little bitch, too. But then you actually bother to come and check up on me, and you see what I look like—how much I look like all those other women you seduced and tortured for fun, those potential Death Row cases, before they got you locked up on an eighty-eight-year bid for something completely different—and that's just a whole _different_ story, isn't it? Instantly. That's interesting. That's a _challenge._ ”

Keller narrowed those dark blue eyes of hers, playing dumb. “The fuck you even talkin' about, Harvard girl?”

“Oh, just something that occurred to me back while I was lying there in hospital, with my leg stretched up past my ear,” Beecher continued. “Because you did hear who came to see me while you were in the Hole, huh, Chris? Agent Taylor, with his files: all those cold cases he's dying to nail that sweet ass of yours for, with my help. Miss Tibbets, Miss Wilson, and...whoever the hell that third one was, I can't remember; I hurt all over and I'm still in fucking detox, so the meds they're giving me are for shit. Plus, it's not like I ever knew them quite as well as you did, or I do you—supposedly.”

“I'm not hearin' a point here, Beech.”

“Point _is,_ Christine, that you're lucky you were smart enough to never tell me anything I could've swapped Taylor for early parole, no matter how many times we made each other come. But the jig's up—I've seen their faces, and not just in the mirror. Now I know exactly why you wanted me to _love_ you.” She heard her own voice break a tiny bit on that last word, no matter how contemptuously she tried to bite it off: _oh God, fuck ME, right in my dumb-ass junkie heart._ “Plain fact is, though, you played yourself when you did that, just like you played me: there's no take-backs when it comes to murder, and I should know. Dead is dead.”

A long pause ensued, Beecher barely daring to breathe yet unable to hear Keller doing so, either; she lay there with fists clenched, wondering how fast Keller would be able to jump down and break her neck before she could yell for the nearest guard, she only took a notion to. But all that actually happened was that Chris's voice came drifting down once more, surprisingly even, to ask—

“You _do,_ though, after all that—huh, Toby? Love me, I mean. 'Cause that's what this's really all about.”

“Fuck you, I do.”

A pleased laugh, even huskier than usual. “Fuck _me,_ you don't...oh yeah, and that too, baby. That too.” A pause. “Which is why I _am_ gonna find out who did this to you, whether you help me with that or not, and pay 'em right on back, twice as hard. Least I can do, considering.”

“Knock yourself out, you crazy bitch.”

“Right back at'cha, Beech.”

 _Only Chris Keller could possibly take “I Found Out You're A Serial Killer And Then I Got Raped, Get The Fuck Away From Me” as just one slightly more elaborate form of flirtation,_ Beecher thought, morosely...then drifted off again despite herself, into what turned out to be, bafflingly enough, some of the best sleep she'd ever had while in Oz.

The next morning, she limped her way over to breakfast and leant in as O'Reilly dumped too much oatmeal on her tray, murmuring: “Remember that favour?” Then added, as O'Reilly shrugged like they were discussing the weather, even though neither of them'd seen it in person for years: “Library, one o'clock. I'll be doing due diligence on Hetzko's appeal.”

“Who the fuck is Hetzko?”

“Chick with the lightning-bolt scalp tattoo, the one you gave a broken glass facial; Gorman got parole while I was laid up, so it's her turn now. Be there.”

O'Reilly nodded, just as Whittlesey yelled out: “Move it along, Beecher! Other people need to eat too, ya know!” “Yes ma'am,” Beecher agreed, doing so while balancing her tray in one hand and with both crutches wedged under her opposite armpit, for maximum possible awkwardness.

So that was what she “owed” O'Reilly, even now—tit for tat for slipping a shank into the top of Beecher's cast like she was getting ready the throw the garter at somebody's fantasy wedding: hers to Dr Nathan, maybe, or Cynda's to whoever toddlers though was cute, these days. It didn't take long after that for Beecher to put herself in Metzger's patrol path, given she'd already seen how close an eye he was keeping on her every time he passed by. “Still walking a little funny there, huh, Beecher?” he threw out when he saw her coming, for all the world like he gave a shit, to which she just paused in mid-limp to look up at him through her lashes, not quite smiling. “Well,” she replied, hoping she'd remembered the exact sultry tone that'd always worked so well on Vee, “people _do_ get what they ask for, I guess.”

His blue gaze widened only slightly, in turn: _finally figured it out, huh?_ was their expression's general subtext. “Seems like Vee was right all along 'bout you, counsellor,” he announced out loud, surprised yet approving. “I mean...you really _are_ some kind of slut.”

Eyes still lowered, submissively: “So I hear, boss.”

There was a supply closet she got copy-paper from for Sister Pete on a fairly regular basis, its door in a dead spot and no cameras inside. She'd already asked O'Reilly to make sure they weren't disturbed, so when she slipped inside to find him already waiting for her, it didn't produce quite the level of shock he was hoping for—at least, not visibly. Standing there with his stick in one hand and the other down his unzipped pants, feeling around for something that looked half as long and almost just as wide; the size of it turned Beecher's spit cold, both holes dry-spasming in horrid recognition. But she knew better than to flinch. Instead, she shut the door behind her softly and leaned her crutches against the wall, bruised knees folding: assumed the position, same way Metzger'd seen her do all through her public punishment at Vee's hands, night after night after night.

“Sir,” she called him, eyes on the floor and hands by her side, then shut her mouth and waited.

Above her, she heard Metzger give a long, self-satisfied sigh. “Vee never did break you, did she?” he asked, probably not expecting much of an answer. “Not really.”

“No, sir.”

“'Cause she never wanted to, and 'cause you can't turn a real whore out, given they're born that way. But _I_ did, didn't I?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, okay. So, now we're here...what should I do to you, Beecher, exactly?”

She swallowed, letting her voice tremble. “Anything you want to. Sir.”

And oh yeah, he liked _that—_ all rapists did, she was sure of it. Came stepping a few more feet forward as she wavered there, pain in her knees already starting to show, and grabbed himself a big handful of hair with the same ham-hand he used to pull his dick out; used it like a coiled-up leash to grind her face-first into his crotch, forcing her to mouth him up and down as he bent her neck 'til the last of the bruises puffed and sang, 'til her jaw-hinge felt like it was going to crack apart. “No teeth,” he warned, running the stick up the back of her neck, hard enough to hurt. “People in here think you're smart, so _be_ smart— _behave,_ Beecher, just like you did for Vee, Or you'll think what I gave you before was a nice massage.”

“Uh huh.”

“You do what I want, we'll get along. Not like there's any other choice.”

“Yuh, boss.”

Choking it out, half-smothered in his stink, while all the while her fingers were working the shank free by tiny increments, every miniscule tug and scrape yet another step towards—what, at that point? Was she even aware she must have been looking for an excuse to move on up the murder scale, premeditate her next kill for once, instead of just destroying other human beings by random accident?

 _How I end up in situations like this is when I get so I don't want to have to THINK anymore,_ Beecher realized, feeling blade turn to hilt under her blood-slippery hand. _Get drunk, get high, black out, fuck up...let myself be weak, just like Vee always said. So screw it, screw him—this time I'm cleaning up my own damn mess myself._

Vee'd told her about the femoral artery enough times in training for her to find it by touch. Just a straight thrust, in then out; _Even nicking it'll fuck him up good,_ she heard Vee growl as she opened wide enough that Metzger let his bull-head loll back, moaning. Brought the blade creeping up feather-gentle, slower than slow, barely touching the skin of his inside thigh, until—

“Fuck _this_ shit,” a third voice said, as someone sat up from behind the paper-stacks Metzger had his bare ass against, so fast he couldn't have turned in time to stop her even if he'd formed the impulse to try. And Beecher craned her head back, jaws grinding automatically together with a gross, wet chomp as Keller's blade slide across Metzger's throat instead, blood bursting forth in one hot red spurt, then another, another, another. Yet more hair tearing free as his hands went up a second too late, desperate to stem the tide—but nothing else at all came out besides a flat hiss from his bisected voicebox, not even when Beecher spat his severed cock-head out onto his own lap and Keller grabbed his stick before it could fall, whacking it across the back of his skull as he went down.

“Yeah, that's right,” Chris told him, conversationally, “just lie down and _stay_ down, you bent hack fuck, 'cause Beecher ain't no whore. And she's alllll mine.”

Grinning down at the woman in question as she said it, Beecher's half-healed leg now far too weak to do more than pop back out flat in front of her, trembling. For a minute she worried about mess, but she'd forgotten who she was dealing with—Keller already had her knee in the small of Metzger's spine and was using the stick like a lever to push him over onto the collapsed stacks that had shielded her previously, trusting they'd sop up the bulk of it. So Beecher just scooted herself back as quickly as she could, teeth set against the pain, 'til her back met the shut door and she sat there stunned, staring at the ruin of Vee's favourite collaborator: pants still open and half-dick out, twitching frantic in a surprisingly small pool of his own blood with reams of copy-paper gone every-which-where, red, white, blue and dead all over.

In the distance, something had begun to scream, its tone vaguely familiar. Keller took her briskly by both arms, hauling her up with a grunt of effort on her part, a muffled scream on Beecher's. Telling her: “Gotta go, baby—Toby, c'mon, _now._ We stay here much longer, even that alarm O'Reilly just pulled won't keep the hacks away.”

Beecher gulped. “Uh, what? How'd you know...?”

“'Cause she _told_ me, moron: _Get your ass in the closet, Chris, that dumb bitch Beech is gonna get herself killed._ What'd you _think_ she was gonna do?”

 _Not that,_ Beecher might have retorted, if there'd only been time. But there wasn't, so she grabbed her crutches instead and let Chris guide her out, hot-footing it down the hall like they were a one-legged sack-race team with its mutual ass on fire. 'Til they were far enough away for plausible denial and crouched back down with hands on heads, watching the SORT Team go by.

“I don't get it,” she muttered hoarsely into Chris's shoulder, still half-held up by one strong arm and the line of her podmate's squatting thigh, warm bulge of muscle supporting her everywhere, feeling Chris's creepily steady pulse beat like it was her own. “Why would you put yourself at risk like that, for me? Especially after I just told you—"

Chris chuckled. “Think I'm gonna hold a grudge over a few harsh words? You don't know me, baby.”

“Well enough to know _that_ 's bullshit, for a start.”

“Yeah, okay. But now we both got something on each other, right? And neither of us wanna end up on Death Row, so...we're even. All back to normal.”

Which truly should have terrified her, and she'd known it, but—it hadn't, not then. Not now Metzger was no longer a threat, and all Beecher was going to have to pay for the privilege was the same price she'd paid Chris a hundred times already. Not with her having come so damn close to throwing her life away all over again, this time knowing exactly what it would cost her, only to have an utterly untrustworthy serial-killing career liar take that burden on for her instead, apparently gladly. And all because she _loved_ her, supposedly...

(like that was even possible)

***

But: _I DID love you, Tobe,_ Chris's dream-voice tells her, gently, back in the here and now—sifting in through Beecher's troubled sleep, making her stir and shiver, hugging Giles all the closer. _For real, I did—I do. I'm never gonna stop, ever. You know that, right?_

_No, I don't. No._

_'Cause you loved me too, you know you did. Could again, under the right circumstances._

_I love my husband, Chris. I love my kids._

_Sure, out here. But back in Oz? You get yourself thrown back in there, no matter what the reason, then all you're EVER gonna have...is me._

Feeling Chris's touch instead of Giles's, so strong and soft together—her clever hands, her wicked mouth. Feeling those lips of hers lick along the cord of Beecher's neck like they did almost every night for two whole years, dark thrum of her voice resonating straight to Beecher's aching core as she whispers: _Difference between you and those weak-ass rich bitches I allegedly killed, Tobe, is you ain't really like them at all, looks aside—no, you're like ME, no matter how much you don't wanna think that's true. That's why you can see me so clear and love me anyways._

(I don't, I don't, I don't.)

 _Yeah, you do; don't lie, lawyer. Lie to everybody else, but not to me._ Beecher turns in her sleep, moaning, forehead pricked with sweat. Hearing, as she does: _And if I'm right—if you can love me, even now, knowing exactly what I am—then maybe there really IS something in here left savin', after all._

Which makes her wake up next to Giles at last, crying, her own mouth still twisted in vain denial: _No, no, no._ But knowing her heart how Chris is right about that, like so much else. How she always was.

 _I always knew it,_ Toby thinks, letting Giles fold her close, try to soothe her back to sleep; wonderful, clueless Giles. _Oh God, I ALWAYS knew it._


End file.
